Songwriter and former Evanescence member David Hodges and multi-instrumentalist Whakaio Taahi took a collaboration between friends and turned it into a 16-track artist project titled Grief. Released via Sleepwalker Records, the debut album arrived on 6/12 under the artist name Hemiispheres and acts as an emotional guide to the healing process.

With over a decade and a half of experience working with artists like Ed Sheeran, Christina Perri, 5SOS, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Dan + Shay and Kelsea Ballerini, among others, Hodges and frequent co-writer Taahi, also a founding member and former guitarist of Australian band Tonight Alive, found that the album became the first experience writing for themselves. Written, recorded and produced during a five-week stay-home order in Nashville, Hodges and Taahi are the sole creators of the project.

“We spend most of our year helping other artists find their voice and be confident in who they are. We don’t really get the chance to that for ourselves. This project literally fell out of us in that way,” shared Taahi.

Outlining the five stages of grief with narrated clips by David Ryan Harris, guitarist for John Mayer, the album is the result of a therapeutic writing process. “Healing is a process and art can help us on that journey of healing. We had written three or four songs and were talking about themes of loss and separation [and] the tones of the songs were different enough from each other that we realized we were already speaking into some of the stages of grief,” said Hodges, who is also a founding partner of management company Milk & Honey.

Taahi added, “These songs could not be more important to us. It’s something we are so proud of and really grateful we get to share this with the world.”

Stream Hemiispheres’ debut album Grief below.