Review by Dom Vigil
Speak The Truth… Even If Your Voice Shakes have spent the last year crafting ten emotionally vulnerable songs that channel the sounds of late 90’s and early 2000’s emo and pop punk, and the result is their cathartic and honest debut release, Everyone You Love Will Slip Away From You. Created during a very integral time during each members’ lives, every track on Everyone You Love Will Slip Away From You not only sounds unique, but also features some incredibly poetic and powerful lyrical content. There’s a little something for everyone on this record, whether you’re coping with loss, still figuring things out, or just trying to get through life one day at a time.
Opening the album on a very high energy and hopeful tone is the first track, “The Upside Down.” Right away, this song fully embraces the old school emo/pop-punk school sounds that influenced the record, and rounding things out are Buddy Neilsen’s signature vocals. The strong lyrical content of the album is established right away as well, in lines like, “I don’t wanna be afraid to be who I am” and “Love can change this painful world.” It’s a beacon of hope that continues to drive the record forward, even in its darkest moments. One of those is the following track, “Mornings Mournings,” a bitter and aggressive song powered by strong guitar work and gang vocals.
Sonically, each track continues to expand on the band’s timeless sound while lyrically, the entire album feels like poetry. Carried by strong metaphors, symbolism and emotional revelations, Everyone You Love Will Slip Away From You is an incredibly personal, yet very relatable release. The fourth track, “Carpenter in Prison” is a perfect example of this, as it’s the first song on the album that isn’t driven by high energy guitar and takes a slower pace, proving the band’s versatility. The distortion on the vocals is also a nice change of pace as well, and lyrically, this song offers a sliver of hope in the line, “If you’re dying inside / You gotta swim to the surface.”
The album’s title track is very honest lyrically, if not a little dark, as it questions the meaning of life and love, admitting, “Everyone you love will die and there’s nothing you can do…” This sentiment is also echoed in the following track, “Drowning on the Sidewalk or Dying Inside,” as Neilsen sings, “Nobody wants to hear about the sunny side of life / They’d rather hear that I’m choking inside.” Together, these two songs really tie in the themes of loss, personal struggle and finding one’s purpose in life.
A few tracks later, one of the most explosive songs on the album is “At Least There’s Always Lexapro,” is followed by the melodic “Go For the Throat,” further driving home the diversity on the album. There’s such a large dynamic range in the album, both from track to track and within each song. “Go For the Throat,” for instance, features clean verses but a rather aggressive and unclean choruses. The only downside on the album as a whole is that the vocals can tend to overpower the rest of the band at times, but after a few listens, this is easy to overlook.
Wrapping things up the same way they begin is the hopeful final track, “Show Your Scars.” Like “The Upside Down,” this song provides listeners with a more optimistic and understanding ending, encouraging them to stay true to themselves in lines like “I know it’s hard to be who you are / Don’t be afraid to show your scars.” Staying true to the rest of the album, “Show Your Scars” is not only incredibly vulnerable, but it also sounds nothing like the songs that come before it, showing promise for the future of Speak The Truth… Even If Your Voice Shakes, no matter what they do next.
LISTEN TO: “Everyone You Love Will Slip Away From You” or “Drowning on the Sidewalk or Dying Inside”
STAY CONNECTED WITH SPEAK THE TRUTH… EVEN IF YOUR VOICE SHAKES: https://www.facebook.com/speakthetruthca/