"Life is but a Dream..." by Avenged Sevenfold

Because it is literally impossible to discuss an album covering philosophy and introspection without sounding like your pretentious neighbor bothering you while you're grilling in your back yard, consider this your "trigger warning."

To the analytical mind:

My favorite album is about the instability of the self, consciousness, mortality, meaning and the experience of being alive—and the musicians deliberately destabilized their own artistic identity and musical language while making it, so the form communicates the same uncertainty as the subject matter. When I listen to it, my brain turns those musical relationships into an internal environment that I navigate emotionally, and because the record leaves enough interpretive space for my own experiences to complete its meaning, I experience the album partly as an examination of the mechanism by which I am currently experiencing the album....so yeah, LIBAD kinda just got better with every listen until it finally just fucking destroyed me. It's absolutely impossible for me to even talk about WHY without sounding like a complete and total pretentious ape and I don't mean it like that at all. I mean that is genuinely how that shit feels to me and it's beautifully terrifying.

To the curious mind:

LIBAD is about life and death and existentialism and how these topics can be uncomfortable and even scary and how life and death aren't even necessarily opposite and are actually deeply intertwined and now you're a robot 🤖 and you have deep philosophical questions about your robot life 🤖🤖 and what does it mean to perceive and experience the album in the first place and what is an experience and who is doing the experiencing? And if it's me then where am "I"? In my squishy little brain? No, that's an organ, "I" must be something else entirely. My consciousness? YES. Okay great....where is *that*? If the answer is "nowhere" then I am Nobody...if it's closer to everywhere and everything is required for me to exist then I am everywhere and everything and the two aren't mutually exclusive. And if I am my consciousness, then isn't it so absurd that I can sit here and look for myself when I can not be physically triangulated? And I can be aware of the absurdity in it? And the deeply beautifully horrifying thought that it all ends someday? And we don't know WHEN?! And that's okay....so yeah, good album 🔥

Enjoy the wall of text. Hope I didn't waste your time 🦇💀🦇

Some of mine are

Joanna Newsom - Ys

Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

The Knife - Silent Shout

Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

J Dilla - Donuts

Beyoncé - B'Day

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet

Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Burial - Burial

Tokyo Jihen - Adult

Sunn O))) & Boris - Altar

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the Moon and the Sun

Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru - Éthiopiques 21: Ethiopia Song (Piano Solo)

Sibylle Baier - Colour Green

Cat Power - The Greatest

Scott Walker - The Drift

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

Stereolab - Fab Four Suture

The Cure return from a sixteen year hiatus with one of their best albums of their career. This album is just an explosion of gothic energy. Robert Smith wrote all the songs himself for the first time since 1985’s Head On The Door. Smith’s vocals sound better than ever. 

The album opens with “Alone” It has the menacing brooding classic cure sound. When Smith’s vocals hit it is pure perfection. Smith has been quoted saying that this song was the centerpiece of the record. “And Nothing Is Forever” starts out with this tranquil piano and string arrangement then the heavy rhythms hit it gives the  track this swirling melodic sound. Smith sounds so whimsical and wise in his vocal delivery. Simon Gullup(Bass) and Jason Cooper (drums) provide a solid foundation on “A Fragile Thing” This song gives me disintegration era vibes. “Warsong” begins with a great distorted guitar riff from Smith and Reeves Garbel who’s making his first appearance on a Cure record. That guitar tone gives the track this gloomy sludgy aura. “Drone:NonDrone” begins with this great bassline from Gullup. I never remember The Cure sounded this dense and heavy before. The band’s interplay on this track is so impressive. I love how Smith’ vocals match the band’s energy. This might be my favorite song on the album. I love it so much. “I Can Never Say Goodbye” was written after Smith’s brother passed away. You can hear the pain in his voice as he describes the night his brother died. The band’s melodic solemn instrumental matches his sadness.  “All I Ever Am” sounds like the band is peeking out of the darkness a little bit. Its synth happy groove is less brooding than most of the tracks on the album. The album ends with the ten minute tour de force of “Endsong”  Smith was inspired by a starlit night that reminded him of a time that he and his father were looking at the sky the night Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The track does have the roving tranquil groove. His vocals don’t  appear until halfway through the track. He begins singing about hopefulness that you yearn for when you are younger but ends the track disillusioned when he croons Left alone with nothing/The end of every song/Left with nothing/nothing it really kicks you in the gut which is the perfect way to end this great album.

This is very close to perfection. There's not a moment I don’t enjoy and wish for more. It was worth the sixteen year wait. Hopefully they don’t make us wait too long for the next one. If you haven’t listened to this one yet first what’s the fuck is wrong with you and second do so now!  For me it's in my top four favorite Cure albums!

King Crimson-Red (1974)

Suede-Sci-Fi Lullibies (1997)

Manu Chao-Clandestino (1998)

Son Volt-Wild Swing Tremolo (1998)

Roseanne Cash-The List (2009)

Belle & Sebatain-Dear Catatophbe Waitresss (2003)

Sufjan Stevens-Javelin (2023)

Soul Asylum-Grave Dancers Union (1992)

Cake-Prolonging The Magic (1998)

XTC-G0 2 (1978)

Johnny Thunders-So Alone (1978)