Shallow Alcove is a band built from a long-standing friendship between Grace Krichbaum, Dan Harris, Peter Groppe, Jack Harrington, and Noah Dardaris. Their sound carries the folk sensibilities of Upstate New York alongside the indie influence of New York City, woven together with layered harmonies and deeply personal songwriting. There’s an intimacy to their sound that makes each song feel less like a performance and more like a conversation with someone you’ve known forever.

 

Their debut album, Pain Is A Heavy Door, is a record about becoming someone new without quite knowing how to leave the person you were behind. Across the album, friendship, love, grief, uncertainty, and the passage of time blur together, turning everyday moments into something tender and expansive. At its core, the album is about learning to accept the uncomfortable parts of growing up and finding people who make you feel a little less alone in them.

 

What began with friends writing songs in bedrooms and basements in Upstate New York has grown into a band split between New York and New Jersey, but Shallow Alcove’s roots have remained the same: storytelling with the people they love. Pain Is A Heavy Door is a document of that friendship from the laughter, grief, shared meals, borrowed beds, bad karaoke, and growing pains that shaped the people making it. It is an album about accepting the weight of change while holding onto each other through it.