Review Summary: In memoriam.
[Untitled]
barrels into me, and in no time at all, what were once familiar surroundings lay unrecognizable.The debris of strained relationships, the death of loved ones, and mental instability litter a place I used to be able to call home. The instrumentation starts to swell again, preparing the way for another onslaught in the form of Aaron Weiss. "9:27am, 7/29" crashes down before I'm even aware of it's presence: Anyone listening want a BRAIN WASHED LIKE MINE?
For twenty years, mewithoutYou have been blazing a trail forward knowing there will come a time when all of
this will come to an end. With the release of their seventh record,
[Untitled] (and accompanying EP), and the announcement they're calling it quits after 2020, that end is here. Sure, in some sense the spirit of what they've accomplished during their time together will remain, but there's a finality to the "necessary dying" the band is undergoing.
It's in the aftermath of that death, and the many forms death takes, that this record finds its home.
Through cryptic imagery (
"Truth swans! kaleidoscopic highway!") and clever turns of phrase (
"who can mark the hour our soul-sick friendships die?"), Aaron seems to be hoping that an exorcism of an endless flood of ideas, literary references, nonsense, and anecdotes can help quiet his restless and collapsing mind. His brother Mike and the rest of the band are there beside him, channeling that same energy. They oscillate from manic to restrained instrumentation; thunderous, to somber. The end product is a record so disorienting, cathartic, and personal, that it leaves me in shambles after each listen. Aaron has always been a source of solidarity for me - I've shared in a lot of his spiritual and philosophical wanderings. I've feared for my own future mental collapse, and even share in the pain of losing a father.
You see, I lost my dad just under two months ago to a long fight with brain cancer, and the last time I saw him was over a year ago.
He had been fighting, mostly alone, for over half of my twenty-seven years on this earth. He'd been through a lot in his life; he was an immigrant from the Philippines to America. He grew up taking care of all of his younger siblings, trying to survive in a racially volatile Los Angeles. He eventually "found faith," and later on was subsequently undone by the hypocrisy and cruelty of the people of the same faith. He met my mom, fell in love, and decided to move back to her hometown in rural Ohio and start a family. They had two children, fell out of love and got divorced, and he found himself in limbo in Ohio living a solitary life. The rare brain tumor followed shortly thereafter, and he slowly lost all functionality over the course of many years until his eventual passing.
The reality of existence can be cold and impartial.
But despite his lot, my dad was filled with curiosity, love, and perseverance. He would philosophize with me about everything under the sun. He'd take me to our favorite record shop and we'd pick out a live Nine Inch Nails or Korn DVD and spend hours listening to music. An extremely gifted guitarist, he would keep playing even after the tumor affected his coordination, until he had to give up playing altogether. His life was filled with a lot of hardship, but in some of his final coherent moments, he continued to express his gratitude for life and the love he had for my sister and I.
It's life circumstances like these that makes Aaron's lyrics on this album so poignant. I can never listen to songs like "Bethlehem, WV" the same ever again:
"Vibrations rose in waves, from a sea of discontent
Dad used to talk about for days, I finally tasted what he meant
Your carcass on the ground, brought vultures to their eyes
My frontal lobe is shutting down, I bet you hear it all the time"
Endings come, sometimes abruptly, and sometimes with years of preparation. But when an ending does arrive, there's no easy way to make sense of it. "My frontal lobe is shutting down" is a reality I live with every night in bed when all is quiet, as my thoughts violently crash into one another until no rational thought is able to form. It's in this head-space that this record truly comes alive for me. It grounds me, helps me to weather the storm. mewithoutYou have been with me through some of the most wonderful and most painful moments of my life. Their music has shaped my worldview in ways I'm still discovering, and individual songs continue to be little altars along my journey. For me, grieving has been an inherently lonely process. People don't know how to interact with me, nor I with them, and well-meaning friends and family try to coax me into being my "normal" self; but what a comfort it is to throw on a record like
[Untitled] and be able to feel understood during these uncertain times.
"To drown in doubts the future needs us, if by chance it should arrive."
[Untitled] tries to pick up the pieces of tragedy. The shadow of death is everywhere and mental collapse is on the horizon, and the weariness of living and feeling isolated is weighing down heavily. Somehow, despite all of this, there is hope. There's a sense that the journey isn't quite over yet - that you have loved ones to lean on, that there's a potential future to step into. It's a record that I'll honestly never have adequate words for.
"Someday, I'll find me," Aaron says in the final words, on the final song, on mewithoutYou's (probable) final album. I believe him, and in turn, believe that it'll be the same for me.
