[$11.99 // http://www.saintmarierecords.com/products/567674-bloody-knives-i-will-cut-your-heart-out-for-this]
Every time I hear a new piece of music by Bloody Knives I always think about what music I've heard of them before that. From digital to vinyl to a split cassette with Screen Vinyl Image, it seems like I've heard Bloody Knives in every way that I can with recorded media. But somehow, I want to approach listening to "I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This" (Which was hilariously censored by Facebook) as if it is the first time I am ever hearing Bloody Knives.
Right away, the songs come off fast and hard. It's like the overall presence of The Cure mixed with the distorted chaos of "Broken" era Nine Inch Nails. There are melodies in these songs, but they are buried beneath the storm. The feeling on here, a lot of times, is this overall sinking, as water which runs down the drain. You just feel like it is pulling you under and you cannot do anything to stop it so it just becomes so much easier to embrace it and go along for the ride; you no longer resist.
You know, as much as I like to use these reviews to write about music- which is what they really are about- I often times feel like they are best related through stories of personal experience. For those who don't know, I used to live in Connecticut (was born here) then I moved to Houston and now I live back in CT again. One of the reasons why I never wanted to move back to CT- why I was so hesitant- was because of a dream I had. I had the dream while I was living in Houston but it took place while I was living in CT so I figured as long as I didn't live in CT I'd be fine.
So what was this life-changing dream that would prevent me from moving back to this state? Well, I was at my parents house with other people- family- and I saw how the world ended. You know how in old Bugs Bunny cartoons they had scenes where a character, usually Bugs or Daffy, would talk to the artist and a giant pencil would come on and erase things? It was kind of like that except more terrifying. In this dream, I saw everything around me- houses, trees, grass, EVERYTHING- literally just turn to black, engulfed in flames. You couldn't escape it, everything just became it. Everything just vanished. It took those around me and then it took me.
While I don't look forward to the end of the world (I feel more like if I've had to suffer through life why shouldn't others as well?) and don't expect to see it in my lifetime that whole idea of just consuming everything in its path until there is nothing left reminds me a lot of how I hear Bloody Knives and get trapped in this music. You could look at it as simply as a flame burning a scrap of paper, but you know, I like to think of the grand show and all that. Plus, these songs are no small scraps of paper either.
I'm still not entirely sure why I heard Bloody Knives on that WTSH compilation all those years ago when I started writing about music again-- when I started Raised by Gypsies. I can listen to music and say, "That's shoegaze!" but I still don't really hear it in Bloody Knives. Bloody Knives is the band that was punk rock mixed with industrial, swallowed a shoegaze band and then spit this back out. Sure, there's maybe a small bit of shoegaze in here, in the quieter moments, but on the whole I still feel rather fortunate to have had this relationship with Bloody Knives for so long because I couldn't imagine my life without them. Perhaps that is the best way to describe these songs: vital.
No comments:
Post a Comment