august 19 2023 07:01
So.... okay. I relistened to this album on June 21st. Relistened, because at one point in high school, I listened to this a lot. Something about it was interesting to me, pulling me in, and I listened until I got fucking sick. Now it's like five years later, and I thought of it probably for the first time since then. I knew that I would recognize every song, even though I couldn't remember what any of them sounded like.
Now I'm listening till I get fucking sick again, probably. Part of it is the familiarity from back then, even though I don't associate any of this music with whatever I was doing at the time. Don't even remember.
This one is different. I do have albums that put me in a certain mood and create emotions in me consistently, many of them. But not many can make me feel so intense. It's a fucking visceral sorrow that grips me. Like, it doesn't subtlely whisper my name, it shouts at me to LISTEN TO IT.
I'm not going over the band or the history or any of that shit because you don't care, I don't care, it's irrelevant, this is about the music. Kay? This is the internet, we can look it up. The relevant information is that this album is short. It contains only seven tracks, which aren't super long or anything. Its brevity makes it concise and consistent. Would I like it to be longer? Nah, not really. It's a situation where I fell in love with it as it is.
1. The Last Day I Was Happy
The title of this already conveys the depressing atmosphere. ...This deep, crunchy heavy guitar that contrasts with the discordant stratospheric noise is so angry. So, this song is dreamy yet aggressive, which is how I'd describe a lot of the album.
"I'm in a perfume heaven with a cement sky. I wanna rip her head off but I don't know why." This type of metaphorical imagery is something I really connect to. What the fuck is a cement sky. Instantly, it's like, this place feels really nice, but you're trapped.
"I wanna rip you open while you're laughing at me. It'd be the last day I was happy." So violent, and so pleasing. I barely find anything in music that scratches that constant creepycute itch of mine, but THIS album is it.
2. Band Aid Covers the Bullet Hole
In terms of individual songs, this has got to be one of my top favorites out of everything. The atmosphere is thick and it is instant. Instead of minor, this song is in a major key, which makes it feel light and airy.
"Bees in the caramel, and I'm not afraid. Surgeons make incisions, what a mess they've made. Tearing at my skin, leaving knives in my brain. Stabbing at the voices driving me insane." It's this sound and the playful, childlike way she sings it that contrasts with the violent imagery. I adore it.
"Girls vomit candy and lies that they're fed. Boys whisper lullabies and wet their beds." I connect to the childhood theme in this context-- taking the so-called "innocence" of children and twisting it into something dark. It's the same with "The Band-Aid only covers the bullet hole." The idea is so cute, a little girl putting a bandage over it because it's the only thing she knows how to do. This song also contributed to my interest in medical themes.
3. Crispin Glover
To be honest, I don't really understand any of the lyrics of this song, but they're so unusual and interesting that I like them anyway. Again, the song instantly enters a deep, melancholy atmosphere with its guitar.
The singer's vocal style is so unique. Something about it, that I can't explain, connects with me. "Girl bruise, sad news, on her birthday." THAT line gives me a very specific vibe... I don't know. I fucking love this song too. It's so beautifully painful.
4. Baby Dracula
"Stop your nonsense, my dear. I know you need attention. So slash an artery." The words are sung gently, but they're so cold, like an ice cube swallowed into your stomach. This song is about an immature past partner that was draining, as if they were draining blood.
Baby Dracula? There's cute and creepy right there.... how adorable and bloody. I do like vampires.
5. Alexander the Burn Victim
Even heavier on the sorrow. The melody of the verses makes every major chord into a seventh, ensuring they all have the feeling of bittersweetness. It's about a beautiful, beautiful death of someone who never felt loved.
"No inkling of caring, he's grief-stricken, staring, oh~ No blood loss or feeling as smoke hits the ceiling, oh~" I just love how it sounds so sad, and yet so tranquil and soothing.
6. Black Horse Riding Star
This is the album at its angriest. Mostly because of the unrestrained screaming of "damn you" and "fuck you". It sounds like pure scorn, disdain, and hatred. I love it.
The song starts off fast and aggressive, but then it suddenly shifts into a much slower and gentle, somber tone... it's really gorgeous, and my biggest issue with the album is that this song doesn't end with that section. It goes back to the first part afterward instead, and to me the middle section carries less weight because of that. But whatever.
7. Can't (Halloween Valentine)
I definitely prefer the title "Halloween Valentine", which are the first words of the song. I must just share lyrics that I feel so deep within.
"No I'm not this crazy... and I can't have fun. Makes me feel like nothing. Am I just that dumb?" Once again, when she sings that she feels like nothing, it's as if she's singing about something so happy and cathartic.
"Bloody nose on white dress. Vanilla girl is in distress." The innocence and the femininity combined with the dark and the unsettling. It's everywhere.
"Sullen sun, humid sky. Feel so sick, I don't know why." When I look up this part, it seems to say "sullen son", with an o, but I have decided to believe that she is saying what I think instead, because it makes more sense and I like it better that way. As someone who dislikes sunlight and hot weather, I relate to this part a lot... when everyone tells you you're meant to feel happy in a situation, and you don't understand why it feels so wrong. Maybe it's because you don't belong there. "Can't you understand?"
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I hope I understand.... for me, this album is the personification of the creepy and cute, the bittersweet, the beauty of the disturbing. I have found absolutely nothing else like it and it's immensely cathartic to me, so I cling onto it tightly.
I've never been able to find anything quite this darkly innocent in any other music. Well, there is The Birthday Massacre, but how should I say..... this is just darker in sound, heavier, more toward gothic rock rather than the synthpop side. So, it's different.
And that's more or less why I fucking adore this piece of music and feel like it is a core part of myself now. Thanks for reading.
august 21 00:52