God Tamers, the Altadena, California-based band led by ex-Actionslacks singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Tim Scanlin, released their debut self-titled 6-song EP on May 16th, 2025 via their own Astonishing Lawns imprint.

Taking their name from “Silver” by Echo & the Bunnymen, God Tamers toil in the time-honored tradition of melodic alt-rock, while incorporating influences (80s new wave, 60s folk rock, orchestral pop) from well outside the genre.

After over a decade away from music, Scanlin started writing again in 2017, and spent much of the pandemic assembling a stockpile of songs, six of which appear on this EP. Entirely written, recorded and mixed by Scanlin at his own Sapphire Studio at the base of the San Gabriel mountains, these songs are the product of hundreds of hours of trial, error, and eventual progress.

This debut EP is predominantly a rumination on aging and mortality, inspired in part by the sudden death of Scanlin’s friend and legendary San Francisco scene photographer Peter Ellenby in 2022. A rave-up based on a repeating 6-note melody and culminating in huge guitar arpeggios and strings, lead track “Like Gravity Cares (About Deckchairs)” is a musical statement of purpose that uses a Titanic-like calamity at sea as a metaphor for the slide into oblivion. At turns wry (“not what I meant by over ice”) and morose (“it moves slow like a hearse”) the song is above all self-aware, with Scanlin asking, “Is there anything that’s sadder than some dude singin’ ‘bout way back when?”

“Ghost of Honor” is Scanlin’s tribute to the incomparable Ellenby, a lamentation of losing both a brother and their salad days in 90s SF (“High-fivin’ on the high seas / middle finger for a prow”). Instrumental closer “Deckchair Sinking” brings us full circle, reprising the melodic figure from “Gravity” and pairing it with a hypnotic bassline to create a meditative and feedback-laden journey to the depths.

Elsewhere, the EP explores the challenges of the living. Partly inspired by his teenage sons, and with a titular reference to Rush’s “Subdivisions”, the synth-infused “A Charm To Soothe” is Scanlin’s homage to the new wave classics and teensploitation movies of his 80s youth, with lyrical references to Risky Business and Valley Girl, and a not-so-subtle nod to a (the?) era-defining scene in the GOAT, Fast Times At Ridgemont High. “You & A Melody,” a crunchy nod to 20-something emancipation, finds our protagonist a decade later, waking up singing Big Star’s “September Gurls” on Saturday at 10:27am (the exact best time of the week, according to Scanlin).

But on this highly personal album, it’s the acoustic-based “Into The Embers” that’s achieved a heartbreaking and tragic broader relevance. On January 7th, 2025 an unprecedented firestorm powered by 90mph winds ripped through the community of Altadena, killing 17 residents and destroying thousands of homes (Scanlin’s barely survived; the fire came within 15 feet). Written in 2022, the song’s lyrics are now eerily prescient. “That house you built out of made up truths / well something hot just landed on the roof,” sings Scanlin, presaging the exact mode of destruction that took his friends’ and neighbors’ homes. Elsewhere the chorus declares “It’s raining ash in Altadena / it’s into the embers again.” Scanlin says, “When I wrote ‘Embers’, I wanted to use life in the southern California fire zone as a metaphor for the never-ending challenges of being an adult. I never thought I was describing an impending real life catastrophe. It’s a weird and tragic coincidence.”

While this debut is essentially Scanlin singing about his lived experience as a middle-aged dad, husband, human, and reinvigorated artist living in the suburbs of NE Los Angeles, the themes of these songs – loss, nostalgia, getting older, hard-won wisdom – are universal.

And the future? Scanlin’s currently at work on the next EP, ensuring that despite its years-long gestation, God Tamers marks a beginning, not an end.