Let’s take a deep breath.

The Revengeseekerz “review”, if you could even call it that, was just something I kind of shit out in a single night. I had the motivation to do so and I feel like I had to publish it immediately. That’s why there’s not really any nice structure to it other than me listening to every song as I’m writing and just putting my thoughts onto the page. I think I just sort of hit publish on it because I needed to publish something. It’s a confidence thing probably.

I also think that Frailty deserves better. Revengeseekerz felt like a club banger, with the same themes as Frailty. But in this album it feels more raw. I wouldn’t be surprised if both are about the same or similar life experience, but Frailty just being a lot closer to that, with all the associated emotions being fresher.

Again, I don’t really know much about Jane Remover, I’ve only been a fan for about a month or so. But there are things about them that just speak to me, it reminds me a lot of that time in my life when I was trying to make my old relationship work, the words exchanged between us, the promises, all of that. It’s all very familiar and relateable despite (I would say) having completely gotten over it years ago now.

In the middle of this I’ve decided that writing about the entire album would be bad. It would just be long and I’d need to fill it with basically nothing. Just descriptions of sounds. Maybe a few stories to supplement that, but I’ve written about the two most personally impactful songs, and I hope that the stories I’ve written prove sufficiently interesting.

kodak moment - shone amongst the rest on first listen

It wasn’t any of the lyrics, I can never focus on the lyrics on a first listen. Unless it’s something repetitive or in a chorus. It’s the sound.

After the first section you hear “it’s all right, it’s all good” and then that piano comes in, incredibly simple with a slow rumble in the background and that voice(?) in the background starts getting louder and louder until everything stops, only voice and then just intense noise with a bunch of pauses and then back into it, and the sounds just keep getting layered on over and over. Until it all bursts, and what it’s like the music, it’s a different genre of music being played with these samples and noises that are a lot more intense.

It all continues to intensify, the rumbling grows louder and more complex, and the piano becomes something almost anxiety provoking, the high pitches among all the intensity, it was something soothing previously and now it cannot be trusted.

I hate to make the comparison but I just have no other frame of reference, it’s like a Death Grips song. Sorry. It’s all noise and layers and intensity until that sample from Sharkboy and Lavagirl which kind of ruined the moment a little for me (having never seen the movie and only knowing the scene from stupid memes) and then it stops.

The noise that plays as it stops is a sample from a Pokemon game when you pick an option, I recognise it having played an insane amount of Pokemon as a child, and then the Wii U menu music. The Pokemon sample was one thing, this is another. I understand the effect that they were going for here, Overwhelm Overwhelm Overwhelm, and then Stop, it’s okay. But it was so much more effective with specifically this song. I had a Wii U as a child, and that menu music isn’t just some nostalgia bait that’s reminded me of being a child, but it’s something that made me feel safe when I would turn on the console, it was just me and my games, nothing in the outside world could leak in.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this anywhere, but I cry incredibly easily. Ever since I was a child I had done so, and throughout my life I had always been insulted for it. It was never by a friend or another kid on the playground, always by an adult or authority figure in my life that had told me to grow up or that it wouldn’t be acceptable. I find that recently it’s been because of memories a lot more than anything else, and I don’t remember if I cried when I heard this for the first time, but I’m definitely crying now as of writing this and listening to it again. I think I’m just especially emotional right now hopped up on caffeine, writing this as I’m supposed to be working, but I think the emotion would be there either way.

The rest of the song is a full 2 minutes to get over it all, put your mind at ease to what just happened and resolve all the thoughts that have just filled your head. It’s got enough complexity to not want to skip on subsequent listens, but not enough to distract you from what you’re thinking about.

champ - most repeated

I think that most of the songs I love hearing about are personal perspectives. This song has plenty of that, I don’t think I relate to everything ever in the song, but just hearing lyrics that I can vaguely put meaning to in a row like this, “When I confide in her, I tear apart the Earth, there’s somebody who has it 10x worse”. The lyrics and descriptions of personal things that nobody would ever know without Jane Remover sharing them, that’s the type of stuff I love hearing about. Not in a parasocial “OMG! I love you Jane Remover!!!!”, it’s more about accessing someone else’s knowledge and thoughts and experiences. I want to hear about what people have gone through and how it’s impacted them, not just because it helps me flesh them out but there’s something more there, I can’t quite put to words. I’m interested how people work, I know how I work and my friends, and I like hearing how different people work. I think that’s just it.

I think the sound of the song is something that seems very fun and enjoyable or innocent. The backing track sounds like Pokemon music, maybe a little less cheery and a bit more developed. But the backdrop of that against hearing their experiences with everything and sort of reminiscing over things, it works incredibly well. It’s a very nice song to listen to. This song also does a similar thing where it intensifies towards the end, there’s a bridge of very gritty sound to ruminate (which is interesting, you’d think it would be calm, but the song has been very calm so I’m guessing it’s more the contrast that triggers that inside my mind) and then it’s more lyrics.

The lyrics that have been ringing in my head for the last week or so, “I have this funny dream, that I mvoed to Bombay Beach, and I’m never seen or heard from again. Won’t have to watch out for Sharks, swimming in the Salton sea, even though I’m more than sure, that one just bit me.” I’m not sure why running away from everything has been such a central theme in my life for so long, I remember when I was going to the next step and I got to pick my sixth form (high school), I wanted to pick the old school that I had gone to before I moved because I would not just get a new start, but also be able to fall back on some old friends from when I was a kid there. At least that’s how it was in my head, it probably would not have worked out that way.

I think now than ever it’s become this thing that I’ve latched onto for hope once I move out. Just getting rid of the old person that used to be here and replace them with someone that’s better. Someone who’s life I actually control completely. That’s probably why I’ve latched onto that lyric so much, I think I just have that same funny dream.

Sorry about no pictures. This isn’t a picture type of blogpost. Again ending abruptly, not sure how to ever end a blogpost.

From your hopefully good friend autumn.