“An army of the golems is stalking now, the heart’s lands / eating all reality / producing only dust and sand.” At this point, Tim joins in, creating a chorus like effect, the both nearly screaming the lyrics with all their hearts. The chorus of “More than a symbol / More than I bargained for” is rather sorrowful, a reflection on burden.Īt the end of the 2 nd chorus, the guitars slowly fade back to acoustic, and Dan begins to sing. After a few lines of the verse, the distortion kicks in and a noisy wall of guitar and slow, driving drums hit your ears like a boulder. With a final track bearing such a name, and given the bleak nature of the rest of the album, one should expect “Earthmover” to be a very heavy track– so the entrance of quiet acoustic guitars and singing is initially surprising. Even so, this skeptical reviewer wasn’t convinced that the praise wasn’t just hyperbole, especially when considering that the website, 4chan, known for some of its less-than-mature users, was where the album first became popular. Then there’s the album’s final track, “Earthmover.” It’s garnered a reputation as “one of the best tracks ever made” from people who’ve listened to the album. I don’t feel anything where this love should be.” “Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail” utilizes both hard hitting, industrial-like drumbeats, and ambient synths to concoct a rocking, upbeat tune about control and power: “Giving us all the disease, but not the vaccine.” Similarly, album highlight “I Don’t Love” uses noise as the foundation of the track’s melody, and somehow creates a rather serene, beautiful, and emotional track reflecting on emotional emptiness: “I don’t love. These all combine to create a unique sound. The band toys with the genres of post-punk, shoegaze, noise, black metal, folk music, and a bit of ambient. The production is very lo-fi, which adds to the dreary atmosphere. An electric bass, electric guitar, field recordings, electronic blips and beats, and even unexplainable voices that the band recorded in their apartment permeate the record. Funny how a record that explores such dark themes uses such a variety of sonic tones to convey it with. It’s worth mentioning that “Bloodhail” is a song about humanity building a human staircase for a hunter to climb to heaven and kill God with arrowheads, a rather dark topic for such a catchy song. On the first true song of the record, “Bloodhail”, Dan and Tim sing “We kill everyone with arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads.” “Arrowheads” is repeated to the point where it gets stuck in your head for a day or two. Even without the context, the lyrics are understandable, and at times, catchy. It’s not required to read before jumping into this album, but it is a nice touch and adds to the weight of all the lyrics. This essay ties into the story that this album tries to tell. The record comes packaged with a 75+ page essay which details the story of Antiochus, a figurehead of an extremely nihilistic sect of Christianity. Generally, double albums have filler to justify its run-time, but, aside from one song or two that may meander for a bit too long, Have A Nice Life keeps the songwriting varied to keep your attention throughout the record. “The Future” is much more sci-fi based in its metaphors and themes than “Plow.” It even has a song about the film The Terminator. The pacing of the record is the first thing you’ll notice: the two CD’s of this double album are separately named “The Plow That Broke the Plains” and “The Future” respectively, and the sonic texture of each side reflects this. Have A Nice Life are Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, and these are the first lyrics of Deathconsciousness, their concept double album debut, coming at the end of the first track: “A quick one before the eternal worm devours Connecticut.” 7 minutes of a lonely guitar arpeggio and mournful synths from a toy piano lead up to this sentence, and the very tone encapsulates the hopelessness and nihilism that populates this record.
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