Vocalist Ran Yerushalmi guides us through the deeply personal and beautifully human ebbs and flows of Walkways’ gripping new album.

When we started writing ‘A Reminder’, I didn’t set out to make a concept album. I simply wrote about everything I had lived through – relapse, recovery, rage, acceptance, trauma, love, and the long road toward healing. Looking back, I realized every song became another chapter in the same story.

I wish I had this album to listen to back when I was extremely troubled. Maybe it would’ve made me feel a little less alone. That’s really what this album is about. Life isn’t a straight line. We relapse, we recover, we rage, we accept, and somehow we keep moving forward. Every wound is a reminder to heal.

One thing I knew from the beginning was that I didn’t want the album to feel like it had a definitive ending. As its closing moments reconnect with its opening theme, the journey quietly begins again, reflecting the endless cycle of growth, relapse, healing, and hope that defines our lives.

A Reminder

‘A Reminder’ became both the title track and the opening statement because it represents the lens through which I eventually learned to experience life. Rather than seeing pain, trauma, and struggle as meaningless obstacles, I began seeing them as forces that shape us, strengthen us, and ultimately guide us toward growth.

I truly believe our deepest wounds and greatest hardships can become our biggest blessings, but only if we choose to let them teach us something. Every painful experience carries the potential to become a reminder to heal, to love harder, and to keep moving forward. To me, that idea became the foundation of everything that followed on this record.

A Fuck You, A Thank You

Following that perspective, ‘A Fuck You, A Thank You’ explores one of the album’s central contradictions: the experiences that hurt us most can also become the ones that shape us the most.

Inspired by the film Split, the song explores the uneasy relationship between trauma and identity, questioning whether our deepest wounds can ultimately become our greatest gifts. Blending crushing riffs with melodic vulnerability, it confronts the chaos that suffering leaves behind while searching for the hidden strength it can forge.

This song comes from a place of gratitude toward everything that broke me. As strange as it sounds, I genuinely don’t know who I would’ve become without the people and experiences that hurt me. Looking back, they shaped me into someone stronger, more compassionate, and more understanding. In a way, this song became my way of saying, “Fuck you”… but also, “Thank you.”

A Devil’s Mist (Fire)

As the album turns outward, ‘A Devil’s Mist’ shifts its focus from personal suffering to the destruction we inflict on the world around us.

The song is a scathing critique of modern civilization, exposing humanity’s endless appetite for power, excess, and consumption. It paints a world consumed by greed, leaving behind exploited laborers, a stripped-bare planet, animals subjected to unimaginable suffering, and entire species driven toward extinction. Yet beneath its fury lies a warning: comfort and convenience can blind us to the consequences of our own actions, until the illusion inevitably ignites into fire.

When I look at the world today, I often feel like we’re standing on the edge of self-inflicted collapse. We convince ourselves we’re progressing while we’re quietly destroying everything around us. To me, the “devil’s mist” became a metaphor for that luxurious haze that keeps us distracted, comfortable, and unwilling to see what’s really happening until it’s too late.

A Virus. Prove Me Wrong

If ‘A Devil’s Mist’ questions the systems we’ve built, ‘A Virus. Prove Me Wrong’ asks an even more uncomfortable question: what if humanity itself has become the disease?

The song is a relentless examination of humanity’s destructive nature, questioning whether we have become a parasite feeding on the very world that sustains us. With unapologetic aggression, it challenges our endless hunger for domination, exploitation, and self-interest while daring anyone to prove otherwise.

I don’t see this song as hateful. I see it as deeply disappointed. We have the capacity for extraordinary compassion and intelligence, yet we continue repeating the same destructive patterns again and again. If the song feels extreme, it’s because sometimes that’s what it takes to force ourselves to ask difficult questions we usually avoid.

Abiding Stress To Unstress

Following the anger and confrontation of the previous songs, ‘Abiding Stress To Unstress”‘shifts the focus inward. Serving as the album’s first interlude, it captures the exhausting paradox of trying to calm a mind that refuses to slow down.

Layered with an intentionally emotionless, robotic voice, the track echoes the endless stream of advice to “just breathe” and “practice mindfulness” – words that can begin to feel mechanical and detached when you’re overwhelmed by anxiety, suicidal thoughts, depression, or rage. As the commands repeat and gradually blur into an almost hypnotic loop, the interlude exposes the strange emotional disconnect that can arise while trying to retrain a distressed mind, where even healthy practices may temporarily feel robotic before they can become genuine sources of comfort.

Again & Again & Again

‘Again & Again & Again’ is a raw, claustrophobic descent into the cycle of anxiety, medication, and emotional shutdown. It exposes the cruel irony of being told to “just breathe” while existing in a constant psychological attack, where survival itself becomes exhausting. Shifting between frantic confrontation and numb resignation, the song lays bare the desperate need for silence, sedation, and relief – if only to make it all go away.

Sometimes the struggle feels endless and meaningless, and slipping back into old habits and coping mechanisms becomes dangerously tempting, even though they never lead to real healing. This song became a full release of those urges to give up. It gives them a place to exist, acknowledges them for what they are, and then lets them go so we can move forward.

Alone Together

After the emotional weight of ‘Again & Again & Again’, ‘Alone Together”‘becomes a quiet moment of human connection. Carried by delicate piano and emotionally swelling strings, the interlude is stripped down to a handful of softly spoken words. It offers no answers, only presence.

“Stay with me,” “I’m here,” and “It’s OK” become a gentle reminder that sometimes the most meaningful comfort isn’t found in solutions, but simply in knowing that someone chooses to remain beside you. Emerging from the emotional collapse of the previous song, the interlude reaches out through the darkness, naturally leading into “All For You” – the album’s most direct expression of love, support, and belonging.

All For You

‘All For You’ became one of the most personal songs on the album. It was written for my son, but also for everyone who walks with us now and in the future.

Blending crushing heaviness and emotional weight with moments of fragile openness, the song explores devotion as both strength and surrender, offering a steady shoulder and an outstretched hand through dark times and struggle. More than anything, it’s a song for anyone who feels lost, unseen, or in need of being found.

More than anything, I hope this song reminds whoever needs to hear it that you are loved. I hope my voice, through our music, can offer even a small moment of comfort, warmth, or belonging.

A Kiss On The Forehead

If ‘All For You’ is about offering that comfort to someone else, “A Kiss On The Forehead” is about finally allowing yourself to receive it.

As the emotional center of the album, the song is a soothing exhale – a moment of stillness carved out of chaos. It frames love as an act of acceptance, allowing beauty and pain, light and shadow, to coexist without resistance. Rooted in intimacy and quiet surrender, it speaks of choosing softness over self-destruction, learning to rest within one’s own skin, and meeting inner demons not with violence, but with compassion.

I wrote this song in a moment of clarity, where acceptance replaced the perpetual war I was fighting within. It’s about letting the sharp edges rest, putting the weapons down, and allowing love and every darker part of me to exist without conditions or punishment. A kiss on the forehead felt like the simplest, most human symbol of that kind of peace. Like permission to finally breathe.

A Programmed Mistake

Just when ‘A Kiss On The Forehead’ seems to offer a moment of peace, ‘A Programmed Mistake’ reminds us that clarity doesn’t erase pain. Sometimes another wound appears when we least expect it, bringing with it overwhelming anger and emotional turmoil.

The song is a brutal reckoning with betrayal, manipulation, and the damage left behind by toxic intimacy. It explores the aftermath of broken trust, where bitterness and regret take hold, leaving scars that linger long after the wounds have healed, while ultimately uncovering the growth hidden beneath them. Furious and unfiltered, it gives overwhelming anger the space it deserves, acknowledging how even the deepest wounds can become a catalyst for self-reconstruction, rebirth, and hard-earned identity.

This song is a chance to let out whatever is eating you up inside right now. Scream it, feel it, get it out. Just don’t forget that everything passes, and sometimes the hardest moments are simply life pushing us forward.

Autonomic Wrath

After releasing that anger, ‘Autonomic Wrath’ asks what comes next.

The song is an unflinching exploration of the battle between instinct and restraint. It confronts the burden of carrying an overwhelming inner rage while desperately choosing control over surrender. Through every heavy breath, it clings to the hope that our greatest burden can become our greatest gift, transforming our deepest impulses into love and proving that our darkest nature does not have to define who we become.

The title reflects how that rage can begin to feel almost autonomic – like a racing heartbeat or the simple act of breathing. It becomes something that no longer feels entirely within conscious control, making it incredibly difficult to let someone in or accept love when everything inside is constantly in turmoil. There are moments where withdrawing from the world feels like the safest option, not only to protect yourself, but also to protect the people you love from the storm you’re carrying.

Yet even then, breathing remains. Heavy, imperfect, and sometimes painfully difficult, but always there. Throughout this album, breath becomes a quiet reminder that survival itself is movement. Maybe if we keep choosing love often enough, one day that, too, can become as instinctive as the rage once was.

Another Relapse, Another Release

Serving as the album’s final interlude, ‘Another Relapse, Another Release’ captures the fragile moments immediately following emotional collapse. Opening with an overwhelming burst of noise and a desperate scream of “No! Not again!”, the track suddenly gives way to a calm, intimate passage of music, where a reassuring voice gently guides the listener through the aftermath of another relapse or breakdown.

The echoes of the chaos never fully disappear, occasionally resurfacing to mirror the intrusive thoughts and emotional waves that return when least expected. Rather than resisting them, the interlude focuses on steady breathing, quiet reassurance, and the simple act of taking one more step forward. It reminds us that healing isn’t measured by never falling again, but by choosing to keep going every time we do.

A Smile (Soul Deep)

Closing the album, ‘A Smile (Soul Deep)’ doesn’t offer a perfect ending. Instead, it reflects on everything that came before.

The song is a contemplative journey through the quiet scars we carry and the bittersweet beauty of losing our innocence. It reflects on empathy, loss, and the choice to remain open in a world that constantly hardens us. Even though we all carry wounds that never fully heal, we can still choose to keep a smile alive through it all.