"The Black and White EP": Haven West Veraguas delves into moral obscurity with an emotive nuance

Haven West Veraguas is a 22-year-old Massachusetts-born writer, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist now based in London, and The Black and White EP is the first release in a planned three-part series that continues with The Colors EP and ends with The Gradient LP. He handles the work himself across writing, performance, and production, and that control shows up in the EP’s consistency and sequencing. Framed as an existential and political alternative folk EP, The Black and White EP pushes back against the modern impulse to turn everything into a clean yes or no, right or wrong argument, and it does it through a seven-track run where each song carries the tension forward. From “an existential crisis at 3pm in the afternoon” through “all i’ve got,” “I HATE CONSUMERISM,” “optimistic nihilism,” “Black and White,” and “comic book,” the record keeps circling purpose, aging, empathy, and the pressure of modern life without rushing to a conclusion. The artist’s own priority is the flow, and the EP earns that focus by letting the last track, “growing old is a mentality,” act as the moment where everything that has been building finally breaks open.

Positioning The Black and White EP Within a Three-Part Release

The Black and White EP serves as the opening release in a three-part project by Haven West Veraguas, followed by The Colors EP and concluding with The Gradient LP. This first EP is centered on existential and political tension, addressing the habit of reducing complex social and personal issues to simplified positions. The concept reflects frustration with binary thinking in contemporary discourse, where problems are framed as right or wrong, yes or no, leaving little space for compromise or ambiguity. Rather than presenting these ideas through direct commentary, the EP approaches them through personal reflection, allowing uncertainty, doubt, and contradiction to remain present throughout the record.

Within the EP itself, this focus is reinforced by the way themes reappear across the track list. Questions about purpose, aging, empathy, consumer culture, and responsibility surface in different forms from song to song, creating continuity without repetition. The record does not attempt to balance its perspective or soften its discomfort, instead allowing tension to accumulate as the songs progress. This approach establishes The Black and White EP as a deliberate starting point, one that prioritizes unresolved ideas and emotional pressure. By the end of the EP, those ideas feel fully carried through rather than concluded, giving the release a sense of internal coherence that comes from persistence rather than resolution.

Flow, Progression, and the Closing Track

The flow of The Black and White EP begins with a contrast that stays consistent throughout the record. “an existential crisis at 3pm in the afternoon” opens with light guitar strums, lulling sounds, and a soft, reflective vocal delivery that feels calm despite lyrics questioning purpose, time, and aging. That calm does not resolve the tension implied by the title, and the EP does not rush to clarify it. “all i’ve got” follows immediately, moving straight into the lyrics with a husky, emotionally restrained vocal. Its short runtime keeps the focus tight, emphasizing empathy, survivor’s guilt, and emotional limitation without expanding the arrangement or breaking the record’s continuity. Together, these opening tracks establish a sense of inward pressure that carries through the EP.

“I HATE CONSUMERISM” shifts the focus outward while staying within the same emotional scale. The song addresses frustration with consumer culture and material expectation, but the delivery remains personal rather than declarative. That keeps the record from feeling segmented, even as the subject matter broadens. “optimistic nihilism” then narrows the focus again, using minimal instrumentation and space to sit with perseverance and self-questioning. The song reflects the idea of continuing despite uncertainty, without framing that persistence as victory or defeat. At this point in the EP, themes of purpose, responsibility, and modern pressure have been layered gradually, with no attempt to resolve them or redirect their weight.

That accumulation gives meaning to the final section of the record. “Black and White” introduces piano in place of guitar, along with flute, cello, and classical elements that add density to the emotional space. The song turns nostalgia into something heavier, engaging with memory and personal history in a way that feels more confrontational than reflective. “comic book” follows by using metaphor to explore routine, predictability, and the sense of life unfolding according to a script, extending the EP’s observational stance. The closing track, “growing old is a mentality,” brings the record to its point of release by addressing gentrification, loss, and change directly. The effect of that ending depends on the full sequence before it, allowing the EP to conclude through progression and continuity rather than explanation.

From Uncertainty to Release

From its opening moments, The Black and White EP holds its ideas in place without letting them settle too quickly. “an existential crisis at 3pm in the afternoon” introduces uncertainty with light guitar and a calm delivery that contrasts with lyrics about time and aging, and that unresolved feeling carries into “all i’ve got,” where empathy and emotional limitation are stated plainly but kept restrained. As the EP moves through frustration with consumer culture on “I HATE CONSUMERISM” and quiet persistence on “optimistic nihilism,” those questions are not answered or redirected, only revisited from slightly different angles. Even when the arrangements widen later on, the record keeps returning to the same pressures, allowing purpose, responsibility, routine, and social change to accumulate across the track list instead of being isolated to individual songs.

That continuity is what gives the final stretch its impact. “Black and White” introduces piano, flute, cello, and classical elements that deepen the emotional space without shifting the EP away from its earlier concerns, while “comic book” reflects on predictability and expectation, keeping the sense of observation intact. When “growing old is a mentality” closes the record, its focus on gentrification, loss, and change feels connected to everything that has come before it, particularly the recurring attention to time passing and the erosion of what once felt familiar. The release comes from finally allowing those ideas to be spoken directly after being held at a distance for most of the EP, giving the album a sense of completion that comes from how the songs are ordered and how long the tension has been allowed to exist.

Stream The Black and White EP on Spotify, and stay tuned with Haven West Veraguas on Instagram and TikTok.