Supplemental Pills - No Easy Way Out (2023)

On their sophomore full-length album, No Easy Way Out,Portland, Oregon’s Supplemental Pills examine tragedy underneath a bed of pulsating drone-rock following the murder of their bass player Aron Christensen in 2022. Inspired by artists like Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, the band is comprised of Ezra Meredith (vocals/guitar), his brother Joel Meredith (guitar), Andy Foster (bass), RonJon Datta (keyboards), and Mark Folkrod (drums/backing vocals). The five-piece follow-up on last year’s Volume 1 with a dark, psychedelic, druggy sound that they refer to as “cerebral music.”

“We do a lot of things: Heavy Blues, Psychedelic, and atmospheric Rock. It’s not as psychedelic/jammy as our first record. It’s more dark and brooding. It has some jams in it, but it’s far more focused,” says Ezra of the new album’s sound.

Tragically, the biggest story on the Supplemental Pills front isn’t their sound, but the death of Aron Christensen, who was murdered while on a hike with his four-month-old puppy, Buzzo. Inept police work, a lazy district attorney, and a host of questions that will probably never be answered have lead many news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, to write about Aron’s mysterious murder. However, prior to his passing, Supplemental Pills were finishing up what would become No Easy Way Out, an eight-track collection of songs that explore, examine, and contemplate life, death, and how nobody makes it out alive.