Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness

This album has been in the number 1 spot on my journal for several months. It is beyond epic, and I would like to say a little about it.

Even among those who believe in an afterlife, death is one life's greatest mysteries. No one knows what it is, and the only way to find out is to lock yourself in it; a dark room that could contain anything, and when you look through the keyhole, all you see is the dark. Well, Have A Nice Life apparently have better methods of looking through death's door. How else could they have created Deathconsciousness? This album is what it sounds like when you die, come back to life, but are still in the dark room, left free to wander about, observe what you please, and walk straight back out the door with the press of a stop button.

Part of the album's appeal is the mystery. Just to warn you, this album is a mountain, and it will kick your ass. I couldn't make it all the way through on the first listen. But what kept me coming back was the mystery of it; I wanted to see what was around the next corner, through the next dark forest, and then turn around and notice a cave I'd never seen before. And this album delivers on the promise of mystery that it makes. Clocking in at nearly an hour and a half, there is plenty here that you never heard the first time, and won't hear for a couple times more. And what's just as amazing, nearly every discovery is as dark and intriguing as the theme would have you expect.

Despite the album's theme and the band's claims, it is not as depressing as you might expect. While there is certainly emotional content, it's not the kind of self-absorbed emotions you might find in death metal or emo or whathaveyou. In fact, you are not even a part of the picture; it's almost as if you were invisible to the world you are walking through. This of course, does not mean you cannot be emotionally impacted by what you see. It only means that you are not the subject matter.

Soundwise, Have A Nice Life cover a pretty long range of ideas while staying within the same idea. Industrial shoegaze is often used to label their sound, which works well enough, but there are plenty of curveballs to be found. Some parts are close to the approach Scott Walker took on The Drift, some are what you might expect from some of Radiohead's darker and more abstract material, but everything here, from the ambient atmospheres to the surprisingly catchy rockers is made Have A Nice Life's own.

This album is daunting, but if you're looking for a listening adventure you won't soon forget, Deathconsciousness certainly qualifies.