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Rating: "I thought I heard a door open, but it was just another one closing".
Are you familiar with Schrodinger's cat theory? To put it briefly: take a cat and put it inside a box with a vial of poison. Since the box is closed and we can no longer see the cat, it must be considered both alive and dead (due to the poison) at the same time. Because we can't rule out any scenario that events might lead to. Of course, the cat will only be in one condition, which we (and only we) will discover when we reopen the box. Now, let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of this blessed cat for once. How would we feel in such a situation (granted it's plausible, but that's the point)? After all, it's not the best. You are neither alive nor dead. In fact, you are both! A mood practically as absurd as it is perfectly summarized by La Dispute.
This debut of theirs (in 2008) is, in a way, an anthem to life. Or rather, to the possibility that life offers us. Or even better, to the missed opportunities that our life could have provided, had certain events gone a little differently. So, we open the box and what do we find? Is our cat hero alive or dead? Is it a door that's opening or a door that's closing? You, who are reading this, are you using your time for better or worse? Leaving aside the last query, our five guys from Michigan seem to have understood (almost) everything. They have put it into words and music, creating a pean to the relativism of life and how a certain thing can make us happy and despairing others at the same time. In moments of difficulty, it feels good to hear things like: "Don’t worry, you've done your best, so you’ll see that it will all work out". In the world of La Dispute, which is more or less somewhere down the river, between Vega and Altair; these speeches do not exist. I'm sorry. The combination of words and music that will come out of your stereo will always and only reiterate one simple concept: that of surrender. If in music you seek "strength to carry on" then don't look for La Dispute's music. Because it will only put you in difficulty, and you can do only one thing: surrender to it. Describing the music itself has always been difficult for me, here more than ever.
Without beating around the bush (I think I’ve done too much of that already) think of the Red House Painters who, instead of "whispering" their resignation to life's disappointments and sufferings, "scream" it (though in this album there are various spoken word vocal parts) making it all (at times) almost redundant. The singer has been accused of "not knowing how to use his voice" shifting from singing to screaming to speaking, SURRENDERING to the intensity of the music. There are no verses, nor choruses. There’s no "scheme" in the lyrics, the whole album is like a long story. And all this creates truly discomfort, restlessness: from the voice to the sounds of the instruments. The album starts just as it ends, and obviously vice versa (listen to understand) to almost give a sense of a vicious circle to the imaginary created by our five. It’s a journey, you let yourself be governed by events. And this journey (which sometimes is our life, other times simple music albums) is our box. We are right inside it, alive and dead at the same time. We are Schrodinger's cat. It's a door closing for me, but opening for you. The record or the journey ends and bam! it’s discovered if we are able to get out of the box. In the end, these are all just bullshits.
Here's the crux of the whole issue.
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