Glass Cloud ‘The Royal Thousand’ (Basick Records 2012)
Glass Cloud ‘All Along’ – Lyrics by Travis Skyes
I am no lover
I am no faultless man
Carry me closer
To where we once began
Because the days now burn
Like fresh lit cigarettes
You pull me closer
With perfect spinerettes
I feel the seams about to split
But you’re wide-eyed and bushy-tailed
I won’t be here forever
And I can feel it
Your eyes like rapid rivers
Move over me
Searching me
Like I can deal with it
Like I can take it
And lose you too
(I know you can)
I am no fucking lover
I am just a burning bridge
These holy rollers
They just don’t stand a chance
Because you speak so slow
In secret alphabets
You walk so tall now
On slender minarets
I am just a ghost
‘All Along’ isn’t that remarkable a song musically. It has a straight ahead structure and groove and does the modern metalcore aesthetic of heavy section into melodic section. That said given the incredible caliber of the musicians involved it is executed with a damn sight more flare than other modern metal band with similar aesthetics could manage. Even vocally the song is somewhat unremarkable. The screams sound angry and the melodic parts are suitably plaintive. What makes ‘All Along’ a track that I’ve come back to time and time again then? Currently the track is starting to close in on one hundred plays on my iTunes because those factors I’ve previously mentioned all of a sudden light up because of the song’s lyrics.
Not to say that these lyrics are ground breaking. The subject matter certainly smacks of something resembling a relationship struggle, be that friendship or something less platonic is somewhat more vague. So far, so metalcore. The amount of middle class white kids in the western world who seem to relate to and write about the subject of relationships falling apart, whatever the relationship is, as if it was the collapse of their entire world is seemingly limitless. The subject isn’t ground breaking, and admittedly at one point or another it is painfully relevant to all of us. This easy accessibility of ‘All Along’ is given an edgier twist by the way in which it’s presented.
‘Because the days now burn
Like fresh lit cigarettes’
Those two lines are where for me the lyrics really start to come to life. The idea of burning days is somewhat dramatic but the idea of a burn also perfectly describes the fallout from any kind of relationship collapse. That this metaphor is further explored with reference to the cigarette is a beautiful twist. The dark romance and drama that still to an extent surrounds smoking from years of film, music, art and celebrity culture is undeniable.You could even argue given modern views on smoking, that it is a)dangerous and b) entirely disgusting the image becomes all the more effective. It adds something unique as an image that the lyrics that tend to follow this kind of music doesn’t: a romantic (in a literary sense that is) sense of tragedy. That is a far more frightening and mature subject to explore than anger.
The allusions towards grace throughout the lyrics further this more convincing lyrical content. The references to ‘perfect spinerettes‘ and then later ‘slender minerettes’ lend an air of grace, femininity and smooth sensuality to the imagery throughout the song. When those particular lyrics are combined with the caustic vocal delivery it makes for an incredibly effective contrast of delivery and meaning. The mirroring of the first line of the first verse in the second line of the second verse as well, but with the addition of some wonderful gratuitous swearing, serves to first mirror and then escalate the idea. Albeit in a very obvious way. This sense of repetition and reinforcement is exactly what makes the song so effective however. As I’m about to demonstrate with the real beauty at the heart of this song. These lines:
‘Your eyes like rapid rivers move over me
Searching me
Like I can deal with it
Like I can take it’
If I need to explain to you quite why that’s almost heart wrenching then I can’t help you. But trust me it is. It’s somewhat dark and certainly powerfully emotive. When you combine that kind of plaintive and entirely genuine sentiment with the aforementioned dark tragedy of the rest of the song you’re left with something that has so much more impact as the sum than as any of its individual parts. The snide sense of self-awareness in ‘Like I can deal with it’ and ‘Like I can take it’ provide a further underpinning of maturity that helps to stop the whole thing from falling into over dramatic teenage angst, like so many songs of this ilk do.
‘All Along’ really is something special. It’s probably a shame that a lot of people won’t pay attention to its literary and emotional impact and will instead to chose to focus on its more muscular and knuckle-headed musical moments. Don’t get me wrong, I think Glass Cloud are great and they execute those moments with such ferocity and conviction, but to the kind of pretentious and artistic soul that I am, the music isn’t half as heavy as the sentiment here.
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C.McMillan
postmanblog.wordpress.com 