Spanish Love Songs - Brave Faces Everyone
Spanish Love Songs; they have a reputation of emotional punk rock. Brave Faces Everyone kicks that reputation into high gear. The album opens with a low tone, a lone guitar and, singer Dylan Slocum wearing his heart of his sleeve. Slocum's shaking vocals bring the entire ensamble together, making Brave Faces Everyone pretty damn hard to turn off. Routine Pain is the perfect archetype of what the first song on an album should be. It is the overture of the theme of the whole album. An emotional tour of Slocum's obviously tormented psyche. Let's see how much lower he can go. On the surface, you might hear similarities to The Menzingers or The Flatliners. It's obviously their sonic niche. But as Routine Pain ends, and your ears get hit with that electronic outro and the drums (of drummer Ruben Duarte) carry you into the second track those similarities start to dwindle.
'It won't be this bleak forever," is not the feeling you get through-out their third full length album. By the middle of Self-Destruction (As A Sensible Career Choice) you're pretty much realizing that the deteriorating world view of Slocum has no intention of shifting. The depression seeps through the upbeat songs via his lyrics. "It can't be this bleak forever, yeah right."
On Generation Loss Slocum takes the microphone for the Millennial generation. "We're just so fucking tired of explaining ourselves." With that, the tone has shifted from individual anxiety to social commentary. He uses insecurities and broken relationships as the route to his audience. Beach Front Property has my second favorite line from the album. "If every city is the same, doom and gloom under a different name." It's delivered so expertly, it feels so much like he doesn't understand why he hasn't decided to give up. Slocum takes a risk here when he speaks as the audience talking about his band. He portrays them as dismissive and uninterested, "Yeah yeah, we know." The track snaps back to his perspective wondering "Why the hell would I care, I'm tired anyway." A sad ending to Side A.
B Side. Losers. By now, I'm beginning to feel like as sad as this is; there is love and hope in the realization that everything sucks. We've been shown how terrible life is and now we're being shown we're losers forever. And it gets harder. But, fuck it. Let's sing along at the top of our lungs. I like that the second track on both sides have a similar title; just thought it was worth noting. And it looks like the prick in Slocum's head isn't ready to stop yet. There's no shortage of guilt. But here is the redemption we were hoping for. "Don't take me outback and shoot me." We come together here as audience and band. If we're going to go down, we're going to do it together. At least that what Slocum hopes.
The album closes with a tour of a hospital. Katie a nurse, saving lives, covered in blood. "They're praying for you." The best rise of the album is here. Loud, getting louder. Positivity. Hope. Now we finally get to the title track. Which happens to have my favorite lines in the album; "I feel like burning down my life again, watch the fire spread over my skin, until I'm nothing but a skeleton." On the second run through of that, Slocum adds a fourth line, "A pile of dust thats free just floating in the wind." Wonderful prose. The title track pulls all the bits and pieces together from the album. Terror, Hope, Despair, Embarrassment, Being torn between tearing it all down and fighting through. Just as Routine Pain is an thematic overture, Brave Faces Everyone is a reprise. A great ending to an emotional punk rock album. If we get to take something from everything we listen to; I think from Spanish Love Songs we should take empathy because we're all in this together.
'It won't be this bleak forever," is not the feeling you get through-out their third full length album. By the middle of Self-Destruction (As A Sensible Career Choice) you're pretty much realizing that the deteriorating world view of Slocum has no intention of shifting. The depression seeps through the upbeat songs via his lyrics. "It can't be this bleak forever, yeah right."
On Generation Loss Slocum takes the microphone for the Millennial generation. "We're just so fucking tired of explaining ourselves." With that, the tone has shifted from individual anxiety to social commentary. He uses insecurities and broken relationships as the route to his audience. Beach Front Property has my second favorite line from the album. "If every city is the same, doom and gloom under a different name." It's delivered so expertly, it feels so much like he doesn't understand why he hasn't decided to give up. Slocum takes a risk here when he speaks as the audience talking about his band. He portrays them as dismissive and uninterested, "Yeah yeah, we know." The track snaps back to his perspective wondering "Why the hell would I care, I'm tired anyway." A sad ending to Side A.
B Side. Losers. By now, I'm beginning to feel like as sad as this is; there is love and hope in the realization that everything sucks. We've been shown how terrible life is and now we're being shown we're losers forever. And it gets harder. But, fuck it. Let's sing along at the top of our lungs. I like that the second track on both sides have a similar title; just thought it was worth noting. And it looks like the prick in Slocum's head isn't ready to stop yet. There's no shortage of guilt. But here is the redemption we were hoping for. "Don't take me outback and shoot me." We come together here as audience and band. If we're going to go down, we're going to do it together. At least that what Slocum hopes.
The album closes with a tour of a hospital. Katie a nurse, saving lives, covered in blood. "They're praying for you." The best rise of the album is here. Loud, getting louder. Positivity. Hope. Now we finally get to the title track. Which happens to have my favorite lines in the album; "I feel like burning down my life again, watch the fire spread over my skin, until I'm nothing but a skeleton." On the second run through of that, Slocum adds a fourth line, "A pile of dust thats free just floating in the wind." Wonderful prose. The title track pulls all the bits and pieces together from the album. Terror, Hope, Despair, Embarrassment, Being torn between tearing it all down and fighting through. Just as Routine Pain is an thematic overture, Brave Faces Everyone is a reprise. A great ending to an emotional punk rock album. If we get to take something from everything we listen to; I think from Spanish Love Songs we should take empathy because we're all in this together.
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