Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness

Have A Nice Life - Hunter

Runs for: 9:45

There's like two, three songs in one here. 

Starts slow, picks up and becomes amazing. Fucking formidable tune.

So after going through the Giles Corey self titled album, I thought to myself that I’d have a bit of a rummage around and find out about this ‘Dan Barrett’ character. Wikipedia tells me he’s a jazz musician from the 50s but that sounds like bullshit, so I delved a little further and found out that I was looking at the wrong guy, or he had a drastic change of heart and went over to alternative music. So anyway, he was in a band called ‘Have A Nice Life’ with a guy called Tim Macuga. They put out Deathconsciousness in 2008 and what few reviews it got were rated very high. Somehow I’ve never even heard of it... Lets give it a listen.

Some of the tracks are pretty ominous and have this doom-y feel to them. There’s piano, heavily distorted drums, wailing drone guitars, all sorts of weird effects. All of it is really slow and drawn out – the album goes for about 85 minutes which makes this the longest non-metal album I have. It’s definitely music for the patient, but very inspiring for people who don’t mind listening to longer, more drawn out and experimental tracks. There’s elements of drone, shoe gaze, ambient sections, all sorts of weird stuff. It goes from atmospheric at times into rock tunes, all the while using not the most complex drum or guitar work, but more cleverly constructing it compared to the rest of the music.

There’s also some parts where you’ll be expecting a song to climax and instead of going all out by stepping in loud drums, or a thrash of guitar, they’ll step up the music in some subtle, much more sinister way and let it climb from there. I like music that keeps you off guard. To me that’s a sign of something very well constructed. Hunter does this really well, and still has a part where it all picks up into this drum led section with truly haunting guitars.

Bloodhail is also a great track. Not a huge amount has to happen in it but it opens with a really simple yet strong bass/drum combination, while the guitar and the vocals go off and do their own thing. The vocals are mixed with reverb and make it all sound like they’re coming to you through a dream.

Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000 is also brilliant. Starts off like one of Brand New’s slower tracks, then near the end it jumps into this crazy ass metal-esque finish. Deep, Deep is a wicked mix of shoegaze and post punk sound… I have to stop here or I’ll go on forever. There’s so much good on this album it’s blowing my fucking mind.

However, after listening to some more of his stuff it’s becoming  apparent that while everything Dan Barrett does is good, he’s got this bad habit of slapping on a lot of reverb over his vocals and making them too hard to hear. Normally I’m ok with barely understandable vocals thanks to my wasted years listening to shitty hardcore but It’s super frustrating to be that much closer to comprehending what’s going on and have too much goddamn reverb in the way! This is my one and only criticism.

This album is moving. It jumps from dark to spacey, ambient to powerful rock. One review put up (that recieved endorsement from Dan Barrett) said that these guys are the embodiment of ‘Post-‘ music. This is true. This might be the most powerful, innovative and inspiring release I’ve heard in years. If anyone comes up to me and says they’ve listened to and enjoyed this album, I will fuck them right on the spot. That’s right. I’m giving a goddamn guarantee here, that I’ll rip off both our clothes and give you the humping of a lifetime.  By the time I’m done with you, sex won’t even be a word in your vocabulary as we’ll have replaced it with something indescribable. Something more. This is all consensual, of course.

Reccomended for: People who like Brand New but weren’t that big on their last album, probably emo… not kids but adults ( I mean you need a fringe for that shit, this does not scream fringe), patient people, proper musos, people who want my glorious dong all up in their business.

Have A Nice Life - Deep, Deep

Runs for: 5;25

Very Post punk. Think cure/joy division esque. 

Got a cool rolling drum on this track's backbone.

Have A Nice Life - Bloodhail

Runs for: 5;25 

Nice and bass-ey. 

The vocals pick up and tear the song to pieces - in a good way.