Come
Near Life Experience

Some albums choose you. It feels like you've known them forever.

The title had already told me everything, I knew all too well what I was dealing with. I knew that the nightmares I would find there were mine.

"Near-Life Experience" or "For a moment... it was almost like being alive."

The story is always the same, you leave the house only to get the stuff, running up and down with labored breathing, perpetually looking for a foothold...

You tried to get out, but every time you fall back, it's like being in the eye of a hurricane and trying to get out: you can't.

And that's how "Hurricane" begins, relentless, desperate. The guitars whip like wind that cuts your face. "Stay away from my love..."

You spend your days shut in your apartment, lying on the floor, with the shutters down, prey to your disturbed dreams... You want to get up, but you are too weak and pale, pale as the daytime moon ("Weak As The Moon")

There is a sense of urgency, of despair and anger in this handful of songs. "Bitten" is a gunshot, Thalia Zedek's voice is the cry of a wounded beast, trapped. And Chris Brokaw's (Codeine) guitars intertwine gritty riffs and hypnotic melodies.

A ballad with a bitter aftertaste like "Walk On's" lets us momentarily catch our breath, invites us to open our eyes.

"Everything was in a Half-life": you've finally stood up, but maybe you're in the wrong world, maybe you're still high, the nightmare has escaped your head and started invading the rest of the room. It spreads like an oil slick on the walls and then closes around you. And now where do you hide?

And yet once there was a bit of hope for you. And the closing "Sloe-eyed" is nothing but the memory of that time, a memory that hurts, because it was only a small pause that was granted to you, and now you're trapped again in your hell. 

Remember? She was beautiful, you had decided to clean yourself up. You had big plans. You wanted to start over. You bought new clothes, you got in touch with some people who had long given up on you, you tried to fill the great void left by drugs. Walking the streets calmly, watching humanity pass by, holding someone by the arm.

And for a moment feeling happy... almost like being alive.