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Rating: Sadness is affliction, it is a subtle pleasure, as comforting as it is harmful: a destructive Demon and an inspiring Muse together. It hardens our hearts and consumes our liver.
We learn to walk in our dark side like a cat in the night, exploring every corner with terror until it becomes our space of tranquility, our comfort zone. We get so used to the darkness that the slightest glimmer of light hurts our eyes, intrigues us, perhaps, but terrifies us. We shun every glimmer of hope, because it's perfectly useless to hope.
We scrape the bottom of the barrel until our nails wear out and our hands get scratched, searching for something, the proverbial, non-existent end of the worst.
Can one rise again?
This record seems to suggest that we can. After the irresistible abyss of despair of The Broken Man, a faint glow illuminates Matt Elliott's latest work in every aspect: composition, arrangements, atmospheres, lyrics. And it does so without being cloying, without recklessness ("Prepare for Disappointment"), with the awareness of someone who has explored the darkness deeply and, without denying it, moves cautiously towards the end of the tunnel.
A complex and painful journey, perfectly summed up in the splendid, lengthy “The Right to Cry” which, on its own, could be worth listening to the whole album. Again, again, again…
Twilight, dusk: now only a heart attack can break our heart, no longer our perverse vice.
And yet, even though there are those who have risen again, we continue to observe the outside world from behind closed curtains, within our four walls of solitude, aware that we are not made for it. That the light does not belong to us.
Hope is only for others.
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