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"You will be the tomb upon which I will rest, and the notes of this song my symphony of ghosts." It is a demonic Chris Eckman who sings in the final lament of "Ended up a stranger."
I devour the flesh of "Ended up a stranger" until revealing its bones; I am the parasite clinging to its skin, the vampire whose teeth remain tight on the neck.
"Ended up a stranger" is - on the theme of pain - a supreme work of art: it is the apotheosis of Bach, it is the tale of following your dream by Coelho, without reaching it.
"Ended up a stranger" is - for every traveling spirit - an immensely underrated work of art: it is Baudelaire's artificial paradise, Dostoyevsky's epileptic crisis, Proust's teacup.
It is the tight violin and obsessive drums of "Lazarus heart," the alt.country gallop of "Radiant," the anguished litany of "More heat than light." "Ended up a stranger" is the rain, steam, and speed of William Tucker, it is the cadaverous spirit of Dalí.
It is the tear that - too often - I have lost along the way.
It is the soul that marries folk (the endless "Life: The Movie"), the suffocated viola that recalls distant and lost times ("Fallen Down Moon"), it is the rock that rapes me with its spirals of painful guitars ("See It In The Dark"), it is the instrumental incest from which the orphan is born ("Mary Edwards"), an undecided daughter in the limbo between lounge and post-rock.
They are the words that - too often - have not found an ear that knew how to listen.
If you ever happen to be alive, you cannot help but be moved by every moment you have lived.
It is Lambchop feasting with Willard Grant Conspiracy ("Lest we forget"), the Black Heart Procession learning Billy Bragg in the poignant "Wislow place." It is the optigan that regurgitates in "Incidento," the mournful piano that vomits in "Climb."
"Oh Lord, I have become a stranger among my old obsessions," sings a demonic Chris Eckman in the final lament, and that guitar doesn’t stop splitting me in two; and I become "Ended Up A Stranger," I become that viola, and I become that very guitar that splits me in two each time, and mine those old obsessions.
An immense journey, that of the Walkabouts, started now twenty years ago in a still green and unprepared Seattle for the grunge blood, and now reaching perfection.
An album about pain, about loss, about death, about the tomb of the past upon which we rest.
If you ever happen to die (God forbid) you cannot help but be moved by every moment of life that you have lost.
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