The Horror and the Wild
★★★★★
Preface
Pretty and baffling! sounds like a romantic-comedy theater. a lot of juxtaposition and creativity. I had heard Farewell Wanderlust and always loved the witty lines, and there’s a lot of that in the album. why isn’t anyone talking about this album!?
The instrumentats are a blend of classical and modern. celos and violins put against distorted guitars, double bass hitting against marching drums. it’s a medival tale dressed in contemporary clothes. you hear about haunting and hurling at doors but there’s also television and make-up, waltz, wine, letters and satin dresses, The Office, and breaking dishes. this gives me a sense of timelessness.
Review
Starts with a whispering song. the wind blows and there’s no music. a guy facing his troubled wife trying to sew in the middle of the night, depicting her losing her sanity. he thinks the kind thing would to leave her, but she thinks otherwise. it’s a very private scene.
And I know the kindest thing
Is to leave you alone
The second track is wild and medieval. it’s a child talking to his father, promising revenge when he outgrows him. he thinks of the father as something monsterous. Wild Blue Yonder sounds cheery and upbeat. it could be the blossoming moments of an unhealthy love, and this fact is known to them but they still stand.
And the candle we lit, well we’ll use it to burn this whole place to the ground
I’m lost, I’m found in you
Welly Boots is also a child-parent monologue. a mother describing her love for her child, how she’s there for them even when she’s dead: Just because I left doesn’t mean that I’m not still there.
When you were young, you’d kick things just to see if they would fall
In the final lines we hear the mother as well, a sort of connection is made (despite If only you could hear my voice). the child finally copes with the death.
Farewell Wanderlust starts with two people meeting at a bar, and spark a conversation. it’s witty and pessimistic from the beginning, already picturing an end for something barely even started:
I’m the hardest goodbye that you’ll ever have to say
she claims that despite her evil past, she can and will try to get better, but she’s not very assured either (I promise you I’ll try but like rubbing wine stains into rugs, it’s my curse). she’s scarred from previous toxic relationships and she’s not healed everafter. the conversation continues with him singing somewhat similar lines: witty, scarred, frustrated and hopeless. he finally comes at peace with the darkness as well. the relationship had a similar effect on him too. they both face their demons and accept that naturally they too, are made of angels and demons, light and darkness; and prepare to see what comes next.
Fair is mostly pictures. it’s a sweet picture of them in a room, alone, rather dark, not able to stay cross at each other, acknowledging their relationship being deeper even than their love: ‘Cause darling I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades. neither can comprehend the why and how of what they have. this is overall an upbeat song.
There a lot of dialogue in The Unwanted Animals! I like the references in it too: Mr. Wolf, Holofernes. at first it depicts coitus: “I make shipwrecks out of my dress; And the door below it splinters; And the creature creeps inside”
Can’t you hear that scratching? There’s something at the door
But the wind has picked us up now. We’re hanging in the air
And as you grip me like an animal That you’re about to spear
“Be good to me,” I whisper And you say, “What?” And I said, “Nothing, dear”
but it can also be the descent back into her madness, suggested by the “I’m the …” pattern that was also present in Farewell Wanderlust.
Marbles is again a sweet imagery, following the nice-evil order of the songs. the two got old, and “lost their marbles” but still adore each other, remenescing their troubled past (bathtub gin, beans, …). he’s facing dementia and can’t remember things properly anymore but even this can be a blessing with the right attitude: even though you’re mad and these memories won’t stay that’s okay ‘Cause then I get to meet you for the first time every single day
they embrace despite the old age, waiting and hoping and telling each other that even at this age they deserve to smile and be happy (Your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep but a place for crows to rest their feet) and keep smiling, rather than crying.
Battle Cries is a lot to take in! I had to listen three times to have a grasp at what’s going on, it’s a fight between them. they’re saying different things, sometimes the things they say “sound” a lot like what the other’s saying, and those lines are just genius. she wants to leave, but he tries to convince her to stay. he tries to make her remember what they had and can still have, how wine helps them get along, how there’s still hope. she’s not convinced, she wants to leave him and have him in her future as someone who “her 50-year-old self would be proud to have known”. they eventually part ways, the last lines are some time after the break-up. the outro pictures them “doing fine” without each other, all they needed to do was that final fight to hear each other out.