the first time something breaks,
pull out the superglue, the tape, the staples
whatever works, whatever works, whatever works.
repeat. ad nauseam.
until the layers of adhesive start to crumble under their own weight
until the bottles are empty and the dispensers spin useless.
eventually (whenever you choose to face it)
you have a decision to make.
you can toss it away
(the broken heart, the splintered trust,
headphones with frayed wires
the shirt you swore you’d stitch
the wound-down watch.)
or you can deconstruct it. peel away
the layers of foam, rubber, cloth, felt
expose the skeleton underneath
the beating heart, the splintered bone
the wires, the blood, the neurons firing
lay it out like a map or a puzzle
you can’t fix a problem that you can’t see.
(just because you can see it, of course
doesn’t mean there’s anything that can be done
sometimes you need it stretched in front of you
wreckage assembled within chalk outlines
to find it within you, finally, to mourn what’s been lost.)
Within Temptation has been one of my favourite bands for more than a decade – Sharon Den Adel was one of my first queer crushes, and they were the first band to really get me interested in metal. (It’s amazing what going from ‘Memories’ to ‘Enter’ will do for a slippery slope into symphonic soundtracks.)
Not surprisingly, then, they’re one of the few artists that I have kept up with. Often, artists I listen to a lot will release new material and I’ll find out years later. I did miss the release of this one by a few months, but that means that I’m listening to it for the first time untainted by reviews, bad or good.
MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
WT has always danced with genre limitations – their very first album was gothic metal complete with beauty-and-the-beast vocals and death metal growls, only to slide smoothly into Celtic and symphonic. This is, after all, the band that collaborated with Xzibit. However, this is the most metal they’ve sounded in a while. While The Unforgiving and Hydra were great, they were closer to hard rock than anything else. In sharp contrast, the guitars on RESIST are crunchier, the drums are louder, the vocals are rougher.
That’s not to say that RESIST is pure metal. Far from it. This time out, while returning to some of their roots, WT has used a lot more electronic sounds and instruments in building their songs. “The Reckoning” uses static and synth to round out its sound, and the blithely weird “Supernova” almost sounds like it belongs in a club. (That song specifically reminds me of the Unhum Remix of “On Whom The Moon Doth Shine” by Theatre of Tragedy; while ToT’s venture into electronica didn’t go nearly as well, that particular remix is another fantastic blend of metal and electronic affectations.)
The collaborations have also continued, although none of them are quite as jaw-dropping as the previous album. Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach, Anders Friden of In Flames, and Jasper Steverlinck of Arid all lend their voices to the album, and they all work pretty well. Friden is probably the best of them, his death-metal snarls on ‘Raise Your Banner’ really adding something to the song instead of serving as just an extra layer of vocals. I do miss how I felt when I first read the track listing of Hydra and saw Tarja, Howard Jones and Xzibit’s names, but different collaborations happen for different reasons.
I also enjoy the new maturity of sound on display. While the songs being similar lengths/tempos is a major downside, the lyrics, sounds and concepts are far less cheesy than previous WT efforts. Some of that is RESIST’s status as a concept album without it dedicating every song to it; a lot of it is a new resonance to the lyrics. (More on the lyrics in a bit.)
INSTRUMENTATION AND LYRICS:
Sharon Den Adel is a self-taught vocalist, and while I adore her swooping soprano (there hasn’t been enough of it on the last few albums) there have always been moments where her tendency to stick to what she’s comfortable doing have been obvious. On this album, however, I really notice how much her voice has grown and developed over the last two decades. Of course, there’s still some cheese; while ‘Holy Ground’ is my favourite song off the album, that first moment of Den Adel trying to sound more Rock than usual is a kicker.
In terms of instrumentation, unfortunately, at points the backing music gets a bit busy. A lot of this I’m willing to attribute to mixing, but while the ‘wall of sound’ works for a lot of RESIST, there are songs that could have benefited from more distinct instruments. ‘Raise Your Banner’ and ‘In Vain’ in particular suffered from a certain muddiness, only made more obvious by the inclusion of instrumental versions on the album (oops).
Lyrically, some songs are better than others, and there are still some awkward moments, but the consistent upward movement seen in previous albums is still there. One of my favourite lyrics is the chorus of ‘Holy Ground’:
Burying the truth with lies
Fed up how you justify
And now I hate it
And how I hate it
You’re so despicable
When you’re acting unreasonable
And I hate it
And I hate it
Your words like firing guns, bullets raining
The way you hurt me ’cause you never wanna face it
Your words like firing guns, bullets raining
Bullets raining, you never wanna face it
SONG FAVOURITES:
‘Holy Ground’, definitely. It reminds me a bit of ‘The Cross’ from The Heart of Everything but with a harder edge – the Terminator 2 Sarah Connor to the OG, one might say.
‘The Reckoning’ has an iconic opening, and the mix of den Adel and Shaddix’s vocals is pretty much perfect.
‘Supernova’ is weird, but the weird is what makes it work – it’s a dancey, electronic symphonic metal track, which is a new experience for me. And the lyrics are great, too!
‘Blood for Freedom’ is the hardest song on the album and it really gets the blood pumping.
‘Firelight’s lyrics get a little bit Adele at time, but the instrumentation in particular is unique – the kind of thing you expect from darkwave rather than symphonic metal.
I’ve decided to do a better job of keeping up with new music releases, and I’ve been quite enjoying the results of the experiment so far. 2019 is looking to be a good music year, what with a gay black cowboy topping up the charts and being his best self (love you, Lil Nas) and that’s without getting into the alt scene.
In no particular order, here’s ten of the best June releases – at least, my personal favourites.
Never There – Sum 41
TW for domestic violence in the video.
Oh, to be a kid in the early 2000s again. It’s weird to realize that Sum 41 was inactive/off the charts for almost a decade, especially when the album Underclass Hero ended up defining my high school life. Luckily, they’re back, and they’re sounding better than ever. ‘Never There’ is another anthem to a deadbeat dad, treading the same ground as Underclass Hero’s 2007 song ‘Dear Father’, but with more sincerity than sass. It’s slow, sad and sweet – moving on from a life-changing absence instead of just addressing it. The video is on a whole different level; it’s dedicated to his mom rather than his dad, and kicks the song up from ‘sad’ to ‘absolutely devastatingly gorgeous’.
2. Rich, White, Straight Men – Kesha
I was really worried after the success (then deafening silence after) Kesha’s ‘Prayer’ that everybody’s favourite glittery punk would slip into obscurity after her prolonged court battle with Dr. Luke. Luckily, she’s more determined than that, and while Dr. Luke’s influence isn’t missed, her personality shines through more than ever. ‘Rich, White, Straight Men’ is a silly, catchy but incredibly biting piece of polemic, hinging on a statement that really should be as simple as it sounds: “what if rich white straight men didn’t rule the world anymore?” You’d think songs that used the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star theme as a bridge and samples of weird men’s laughter wouldn’t be so good, but that’s Kesha for you.
3. Nothing Less, Nothing More – Eivør & Tom Hodge
Eivør‘s Faroese ballads (ex. ‘Trollabundin’ and ‘I Tokuni) are what made her famous, but this ballad done in collaboration with composer Tom Hodge is entirely in English and no less haunting. It’s a simple love song about contentment, relaxing and sweet, and Eivør’s voice is the perfect thing to fall asleep to. I’ll also be checking out more of Tom Hodge’s work as a result.
4. Shoog Shoog – The HU
The HU went viral a while ago with the video for their song ‘Yuve Yuve Yu’ – they’re a Mongolian heavy metal band who performs a genre they call Hunnu Rock, and Shoog Shoog is their third single. It’s just as fun and rhythmic as the others, possibly even more fun to shout along to. The part I like the most about The HU is that, especially once you get past the novelty factor of the genre and different language – they are DAMN good players. The guitar (or similar-to-guitar; I’ll admit I am not well versed in the exact instruments they use) work is intense and skilled, not to mention the production work.
5. Teenagers – Courage My Love
Courage My Love is a band I’m only just starting to fall in love with, but if you like Paramore, the Cocteau Twins or Metric, you’ll enjoy these twin sisters. ‘Teenagers’ is their latest single, a catchy pop hook over a powerful synth paired with lyrics about growing older and pretending to be teenagers still. The video and lyrics are also a homage to the Breakfast Club, joyful nostalgia paired with a half-smiling, ironic tone. I found myself humming this one to myself a lot, and the lyrics are a particular, powerful kind of bittersweet that millennials in particular will understand. Turns out, we’re not teenagers anymore.
6. Railroads – Tarja
I’ve loved Tarja Turunen since she was the lead singer of Nightwish, and her solo career has reached new heights in directions Nightwish never would have gone. ‘Railroads’ is a gorgeous soundscape, and the rhythmic lyrics on the bridge – fading into an operatic chorus – is a masterpiece in both writing and performance. Emotionally, it hits wonderfully as well.
7. Another Chorus – Violent Femmes
The Violent Femmes are one of those bands that have broken up and gotten back together a few times, but as somebody who doesn’t listen to them heavily, I can’t attest to the quality of this as a Violent Femme song. As a song on its own, however, it’s hilarious and I’ve had it on repeat more than I’ll probably admit to. I’m one of those people who will loop songs on repeat so I am absolutely who they’re making fun of in this song, but I don’t care – they do it with such humour (and such talent) that I can’t take it personally.
8. Hound – Thenighttimeproject
I love prog metal. This isn’t a secret to anybody who knows me, although my genre tastes are wide and eclectic. So the sudden discovery of a new prog metal band, slow and creeping with just enough weird to go with their sad to keep me interested, has me over the moon. Thenighttimeproject’s sophomore effort ‘The Pale Season’ has some surprisingly uplifting lyrics given the chilling combination of low vocals and meandering guitars, and the opening track ‘Hound’ is one of the best on the album.
9. Venom by Icon for Hire
My god, I love Icon for Hire. Their mix of electronica, pop sensibilities and punk-rock swagger has been hitting my buttons since their first album, and ‘Venom’ is no exception. The chorus for this one will be stuck in your head for a while (misery, misery is the venom in my brain, killing me killing me but I don’t feel the pain, running from something that I can’t really explain), and the songwriting, as usual, is a top-notch, scathing bite at self-destructive impulse and pop-culture cannibalism alike.
10. The Quiet – Imogen Heap
Imogen Heap’s music embodies a special melancholic vulnerability; her soft voice somehow both strains to be heard and echoes over her instruments, and ‘The Quiet’ is another heartbreaker, almost a sequel to ‘Speeding Cars’. It’s actually quite a sweet song, about love at first sight between lonely people, but sometimes the most honest songs are the saddest anyway. This was apparently written to go with a video game, but it stands perfectly well on its own.
BONUS: May Releases
11. Alligator – Of Monsters and Men
I’ve been waiting for any sign of activity from the Icelandic baroque folk-pop group for four years now, and even though this single dropped back at the beginning of May, I’m including it here out of pure excitement. ‘Alligator’ is filled with the same kind of restless energy as ‘Winter Sound’ and ‘We Sink’, promising more rock influences in the upcoming album (set to release sometime during 2019).
12. You- RVNS
RVNS is a new band for me, soft synth-pop with mournful male vocals. ‘You’ is another single that actually dropped back in May, but it’s stuck with me enough that I wanted to share it. Somewhere between The Postal Service and Foster the People, it’s the perfect kind of music for introspection, late afternoons and rainy days.
Ever since Lord of the Rings came out – and even more since the advent of Dungeons and Dragons – fantasy has been struggling with an identity problem. Not every fantasy book is based on Tolkien or Gygax (and in fact, it’s much smaller than many people think) but it’s easy to see where their influences on the genre have been permanent. This has been changing recently, especially with the influx of diverse authorship, own-voices material and interest in other types of fantasy, but it’s hard to get away from.
Two Dark Moons (and the Shale Project as a whole; more on that later!) is more than just a breath of fresh air. It’s a lungful of a mountain breeze – a complex self-sufficient world that doesn’t just make room for trans identity, but is built off of trans and non-binary identity, makes it an intrinsic part of its lore.
In the hmun of Ateng, your role in life and your destiny is governed by which phase of the two moons you are born under. It determines your pronouns, your assigned gender, your personality and the role you are meant to take in the hmun. It’s important to be absolutely clear here that when Two Dark Moons talks about gender, it doesn’t give a fig about biology; whether a character has a uterus, testosterone, etc. is so completely unimportant to the narrative that it never comes up. You’d think this wouldn’t be such a revolutionary concept, but after years of reading male writers describe breasts with such “loving” detail, and the heterosexist, cissexist assumptions of sex scenes in novels, it really is one of the most validating reading experiences I’ve ever had.
Ateng is hardly an idyllic palace, though. The hmun subsist off the land and are semi-nomadic, travelling between different mountain peaks, but an attack of saoni (lizard-people; there is a diacritic on the word but my browser is refusing to cooperate) leaves the Sky Bridge destroyed and a whole generation of young adults stranded on another mountain. In addition to this, not every phase of the moons is equal; children born under the dark phase of the moons are meant to be abandoned, since they bring bad luck. This sets up a fascinating dynamic where misgendering as we understand it doesn’t exist, but Sohmeng is suffering the equivalent – lying about the phase she was born under in order to survive and be accepted.
Two Dark Moons is absolutely gorgeous, and I could keep gushing, but here’s the best news: I received an ARC of this for an honest review, which means it’s launching today. You should definitely get a copy, and check out the rest of Shale while you’re at it. (I will make this fandom a Thing if it kills me, dang it. Read Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming!)
Trigger warnings for this book include: (fantasy equivalent) misgendering, heights, starvation, abandonment, very big lizards (they’re cute, but still!)
It’s two in the afternoon, and the radio (New Hot Eighty Nine-Nine, it’s reminded us at least four times on the drive over here) is playing another rock song with a vague message. All American Rejects, 2006, Move Along. I remember that much.
Except, I don’t. I’m seven years old, or I will be in three months, and I’m not quite tall enough to peer out the backseat windows yet. Jo isn’t even close—she clambers over my knees, her seatbelt already undone, and I pull some of her thick hair out of my mouth with a grimace.
“Johara,” I complain, “you took your hair elastic off again,” and I wrestle her down long enough to pull her tight curls back. She’s paler than she used to be, with a new spray of freckles over her nose, but we still don’t fit in with the other kids, either of us.
“Look, look! It our new house!”
“Yeah, yeah, but you gotta sit down—” Before I can get her to sit still, the social worker’s opening the car door, and we step out onto the lawn, looking up at the little house and the two people coming towards us. They’re older, with snow-white hair and pale skin, and I don’t like the way they look at us, weird and sideways and with a sigh of resignation, not what they wanted—
The only thing I remember, or see, for a while is how the grass and the asphalt looked under my feet, their voices droning behind me.
Then we’re inside. I can hear Johara babbling away at our “new mom,” and I sit down on the landing of the stairs, staring up at a painting of a lady knight, at the little reflections in her armour. Then the babbling gets frantic, and one word cuts clearly in—“NO!”
I stumble, nearly falling as I go back down the stairs and into the kitchen. The social worker’s gone, I don’t remember how or when. A handful of Jo’s hair is hanging from between the tall lady’s fingers, and she looks so confused and irritated that I almost think I’m imagining it.
“Jo, dear,” she says, bungling the pronunciation (and I don’t know where it came from, the way I used to say it, gentle J sloping into the o, Jho-hara), I can’t get a brush through your hair with all the knots. Trust me, short is better.”
—for fuck’s sake, she’s four, and this time I can feel memories from later intruding, she still gets so anxious when she thinks people are mad, and how dare you how dare you that took years to grow back properly—
—so I rush in and pull Johara into my arms, and when our new mom sighs and reaches for me with the same unchanged look of irritation (like we’re rats, I think, and I thought that when I was seven too, I know that part for a fact) I kick her in the shin.
She drops the scissors, and they plunge, blade first, into the top of her sandaled foot.
The social worker lectures me later, on the way back to the group home. I should feel bad. I can see the little wisps poking out from the part of Jo’s hair that got cut, and I say, so should she.
——————
It took a few more nudges than it should have for my brain to catch up, but soon I realized that somebody was shaking me awake. I was ready to lash out, but then the voice echoed in my head, Don’t worry. Just me.
I opened my bleary eyes, and grumbled vaguely in Will’s direction. The sunlight caught her face at just the right angle from the window, sparkling off the studs in her ears, the fading pink highlights in her white-blonde hair, casting shadows at her cheekbones and chin—
She bit her lip, trying not to smile, and I sat up quickly with a flush. “Stop listening,” I growled, mostly out of embarrassment.
“I do my best. You ever tried not to hear somebody talking?”
“Yes. But I see your point.”
“I take it as a compliment, if that helps.”
I just scowled at her. I was still half asleep, and the fragments of my dream were peeling off bits at a time. “What are you doing here?”
“Just checking in. Also, you fell asleep with your notebook on your face and it was really cute.” She handed it to me, and I snatched it back, desperately trying not to blush.
“I’m not cute. You don’t have to check up on me constantly, you know.”
Will rolled her eyes, standing up and looking down at me with a frustrated expression. “You remember that you’re in danger, right? I’d hate to think you forgot about the probably-serial-killer out for your blood.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine.”
“And you’ll continue to be fine as long as you let me check up on you.”
I flopped my arms down, glaring up at her. She returned it, one eyebrow raised. “…Fine. But you’re gonna tell me more about Kiera.”
She blanched slightly. “Uh, I don’t—you know, maybe—”
“Sit your ass down.”
“Where? You don’t have any chairs.”
“Correction, I have one, also the floor is surprisingly comfortable.”
“It’s hardwood.”
“Then sit on a box, just stop complaining and be helpful.”
Will snorted, pulling up my box of books. “I see why you work alone. You’d terrorize your assistants.”
I just opened my notebook, sticking my pen into my mouth. The most recent pages were notes I’d taken on the concept of faeries. I could still hear Kiera’s growl in my ears. I am the monster under your bed. The Internet had helped a bit—although how much of it was true, I had no idea. I just wanted to work off of something. So I exhaled, and hoped I didn’t sound crazy.
“Okay, so, superpowers are a thing. I’ve spent the last two weeks coming to terms with this.”
“Don’t worry. It took me a solid year.”
“…I’m curious, but not gonna ask. Thing is—” I exhaled. “Okay, is there anything… else supernatural that happens that I didn’t know about in this weird little underground society you guys have going on?”
“That is so not what this is.”
“Whatever. Answer the question.”
Will crossed her legs, and I carefully maintained the rhythmic repetition in my head that I’d let slip while waking up.
“Do you have an example?” she said, and something about the way she said it, the way she perched on the box, made me immediately wonder what she was hiding. Possibly it wasn’t fair of me, but even after this short a time I’d noticed that Will had a habit of not saying more than she needed to.
“Stuff that isn’t the shit we can do? I don’t know how much more specific you want me to be.”
She scratched her cheek. “Well, there’s that passenger of Avery’s who they keep telling me is a god. I can never tell if they’re joking or not. And, well, there’s—there’s the fae.”
“The. The what.”
“Faeries,” she mumbled. “I don’t like talking about them.”
I had to admit, my brain defaulted to ‘crazy’. I didn’t mean to—I was trying to be open to new ideas, and I really didn’t have any room to call anybody crazy. But Kiera had said it herself. She was a faerie. Which meant—
“Cassandra said you didn’t know what Kiera was,” I challenged. Although admittedly, Cassandra had said a lot of things. She was the one who had given me the full picture of the elementals, people with powers born from trauma banding together in community – which was a rosy picture at the best of times. Still, Cassandra had also claimed to be in charge, more or less.
Will scoffed, scratching her chin. “She doesn’t know. That’s different.”
“So you know what Kiera is and haven’t told Cassandra.”
“Despite what the great Cassandra thinks, it isn’t actually necessary for her to know everything.”
Oh boy. And today had started off so well. “What is your problem?” I hissed.
“I should be asking you that. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that this isn’t your fi—”
“The hell it isn’t!” I could feel my pen bending in my grip and I put it down, tempted to throw it at her. “Last time I checked, I was one of the group being killed off, I think I have a stake!”
“So do the rest of us. What do you think stabilization means?’
“Something I didn’t sign up for.”
Will buried her face in her hands, and a stab of guilt ran through my chest. We kept fighting. I didn’t mean to—but it kept happening. I liked her, that wasn’t the problem—I just didn’t trust her. I didn’t trust anyone.
Then, bit by bit, the guilt faded. I still felt bad, but… I didn’t feel guilty. Not for calling Will out on a lie, or babying me. Confused, yeah. …Really, really confused.
I glanced up at Will, who was staring at the floor, blue eyes flat. She looked… guilty. Embarrassed. Will. Will’s emotions. Will’s feelings. Will’s guilt. Will didn’t trust anybody, either.
“Will,” I said quietly, “What does unstable powers mean?”
“Sorry. I’m—sorry.”
“That’s not an answer. You haven’t explained it to me before. And if—if all the Salts are dying—” I swallowed. I got the chant up in the back of my head again, and watched her shoulders drop, the sharp breath leave her mouth. “Can you control emotions? My emotions?”
“Not by choice. I can only plant ideas, thoughts. The emotions are, you know,” she shrugged, not looking at me and not finishing her sentence.
Like Kiera. It was starting to come together. When there wasn’t a Salt around, or Will got upset, or unstable, it wasn’t reality that shifted and changed. It was her emotions that transmitted.
I supposed I was angry. It would have been useful to know that ahead of time. I couldn’t tell how many times she’d done it before, by accident or negligence—and by her own admission, there were only two living Salts left. But at that moment, I couldn’t quite muster up anything but a profound sense of sadness. Mine, this time.
“Is it always like this?”
“Nah. It’s just bad right now, because everything’s kind of—messy, and stressful. I don’t like Kiera. She uh, reminds me of somebody I used to know.” There was something she wasn’t saying, there – but this time, it was the kind of secret I wasn’t going to fault her for.
“Oh god. Yeah, no, I get that.” Most of the people who’d thrown their weight around like Kiera did, confident that they could get away with anything they wanted, had been men—but that didn’t change the basics. “…Can I, um. Can I help?”
“Eh, just being around does plenty. And I can get my shit under control to a certain point. Just give me a sec.” The light was coming back to Will’s eyes already, and she perched her chin on her curled fingers, smirking at me. “So Kiera let it slip to you too, huh? The whole I am the Sidhe thing.”
“Not so much slip as proudly announced it. She’s rather full of herself, isn’t she?”
“You have no idea.”
“How’d you two—”
Will flinched almost imperceptibly. “I don’t really wanna talk about it. Like I said, Cass doesn’t need to know everything.”
This time, I figured I’d leave well enough alone. Besides, it wasn’t like I needed more proof that Kiera was an asshole. And another question had occurred to me once we’d started talking about Salts. “So, how did I not know?”
“Know what?”
“About us dying. I’m not part of the community, but that many deaths? This is Ottawa—we get two murders a year.”
Will shrugged. “A lot just went missing, or they were homeless or close enough. The whole trauma thing means a lot of us fly under the radar.”
I sighed, notebook flopping against my knees. “You really need to stop assuming I know what you mean.”
“Well—” She was looking awkward again. “It’s way more common for people to be traumatized and get PTSD when we’re homeless, trans, queer, and—well, people of colour—”
Ugh. She was doing That Thing. “You can look at me when you say that. I’m well aware that I’m brown.”
“I was trying to be—”
“Racially sensitive?”
“Don’t be a jerk. I don’t know what your trauma is.” Then she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry. Yes. White moment. Yeah, the homeless thing was mostly what I meant. But a lot of us are people of colour, too. Us as in—”
“I know what you meant. Stop talking.” I was teasing at this point. She meant well, and besides, in between all the faerie research, I’d quietly and nervously googled ‘how not to accidentally misgender your trans friend in your brain.’ No results, but worth a shot.
Back on topic. I still doubted that I counted as traumatized, but I could follow that logic. Which meant Kiera had been killing homeless people. Lovely.
I stuck my pen into my mouth, thinking it through. Probably the murders had shown up on the news, at least in passing. But if nobody had claimed them—
“Hey, Will.”
She blinked. “Yeah?”
“Can you get me into the city morgue?”
The total look of speechlessness on her face was amazing. I think it was the first time I’d really, truly caught her off guard. Then her nonplussed expression morphed into a wicked grin. “You are so much more interesting than I thought. Lemme grab my coat.”
Elliott Dunstan 