(100) Days of Soundtrack: #7 – The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – Harmlessness

Today’s album is another stop on the request train, and we’re back to legitimately new music after a few days looking back. If there is a band name which is less of an accurate statement for me than The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, I don’t know what it is. The name itself gives me a bit of agita, both for the content and the sheer length of it. It’s a name you take on when you want the appearance of depth. It’s the sort of name you give a post-rock song: long and unwieldy like the track itself, with enough words to make up for the lack of lyrics within. As such, approaching this album, there were certain post-rock expectations on the sound. In that, Harmlessness falls short, but it does not in any other way disappoint.

The first track, “You Can’t Live There Forever,” touches on the disconnect between band name and normal human sentiment. We’re afraid to die, and it’s alright. Not that that makes it any easier, but it is interesting that the band would confront their own name and the quintessential conflict of human existence so early in an album. If that were the overarching theme, of course, this would destined to be a crushing listen. Thankfully, the album opens up to a more complete experience which feels far more uplifting.

There’s a moment in Emo, somewhere between Sunny Day Real Estate and Brand New, when the genre was more about evoking emotion than being the tear in the eye. This is the direct descendant of that world. There is a green world created, something gauzy and airy built around intricate orchestration. It’s almost operatic, inasmuch as both music like this and opera are about telling a story. This is evident especially in “January 10th, 2014,” as dueling vocalists seem to call and respond, creating dialogue. It is obvious in the pounding drums that anchor the soundscapes, in the chugging guitars hidden under the brighter chiming moments, or the harmonic squeals punctuating calm vocals. This is music that builds emotional pitch, which understands how sounds can play with us. In that way, perhaps it is a bit like post-rock, and interludes from one track to the next, not to mention pieces like the instrumental “Blank #11,”or the long, long, long pair which close the album, even provide familiar musical reference points.

That’s not to say it doesn’t also suffer from the foibles of the genre. “Mental Health” is too precious by half, mining what feels like a naive melancholy and nostalgia, wallowing just a little too deep in itself. “Wendover” feels like a leftover Weakerthans track, lacking the cleverness which makes Samson’s outfit so engaging, and it seems to exhaust itself early… its ending comes in clunky and drops out abruptly. What it is to say, however, is that the album immediately recovers with “We Need More Skulls,” which burns slow but hot with drama, which seethes and boils with controlled chaos. It is to say that the three best songs on the album manage to also be the longest, and that at no point do these tracks feel they’ve overstayed their welcome. This is a complete package album, not even because of thematic threads, but because the whole makes so much sense together while also allowing each piece to live on its own. I don’t know if I knew I needed an album like this back in my life, but I definitely did.

Comments are closed.