Thirty years ago this month, humanity witnessed a rare sight: A comet measuring nearly 2 kilometres-wide slammed into the planet Jupiter, with a force that would have destroyed the Earth had we been the ones in its path instead. Astronomers named that comet Shoemaker Levy-9.

A few years later—on the far safer terra firma of Newmarket, Ontario—a bunch of indie/alt-rockers decided to christen their new group Shoemaker Levee, in recognition of the momentous celestial occurrence. Fast-forward to 2024, and that group is still going strong with the release of its new single, “Hinterlands,” which hits with the same planet-flattening impact their fiery namesake made all those years ago.

A bracing challenge to our very notions of being, the song paints in broad strokes the existential dilemmas facing every one of us in this highly uncertain era: