We as living beings are destined to take one of two actions when facing a situation: fight or flight. Backed in a corner with seemingly nowhere to run, accidentally viewing the love of your life kissing another, finding out you have an irreversable disease to which there is no happy ending, any shattering curveball life throws your way is met with a fork in the road, where there are two clear paths but no easy choices. On one hand, you can fight; using your energy and resources to unleash all of your defenses against the one bringing you down. Or you can flee; escaping the brutal grasp of reality and truth to hopefully find a brighter horizon elsewhere, away from the torture. Where this ties into
Document #8 is that the album is the audible recording of taking neither road; uncharted territory in which all you're left with is nigh-unbearable amounts of emotion and fury, choosing to not fight or flee the painful situation but to just stop in your tracks and scream, as if by not acting on your basic instinct you have suddenly become free of the moment entirely. The album dissects the little inner moments we have as humans where pain is overcome by complete release of emotion where nothing seems to exist and it's in these moments where freedom and what makes us human in the first place revel. We are only bounded by our own mental chains and with
Document #8, Pg. 99 have not only broken the chains, but ripped them the f*** out of the cold ground.
You know those times. Where you're screaming your lungs out in your car to your favorite song, not a care in the world, not noticing or worrying if someone sees or laughs at you for being so honest. Just recently losing a loved one and being able to cry and grip your pillow and though your eyes are filled with tears, it's such a moment of clarity. It's those little unmasked moments of freedom in life that
Document #8 well, document in an outcry to human emotion and rage. You can just picture it when you listen to the album can't you? Being front row at one of their concerts and screaming face to face with vocalist Chris Taylor as sweat and feeling pour out of you. It wouldn't even have to be the lyrics, screaming anything on your mind or that's eating at you would suffice, and that's sort of the point of
Document #8; where Taylor screams "in the setting sun, and her love was a vampire" in the dynamic, brilliant crescendo-like structure of "In Love With An Apparition", it's of course about some sort of personal pain but it's up to the listener to decipher the meaning and make it their own, wherever appropriate in their own life.
Document #8 isn't as much about one man's tribulations as it is a blueprint to extroverting one's own emotional depths. Its message is one for all of us to embrace and the possible outreach the album could have makes it an almost legendary artistic statement.
Though Pg. 99 recognize the sort of victory that comes with freedom, they also realize that it is not without its own perils, as demonstrated through the venomous and darkly-toned "Ballad Of Circling Vultures" where a bassline that could only be written in an abyss unravels into feedback and emotive ramblings, calling forth a rememberance to the foggy times that enable us to reach the mountaintop of emotion. Following track "The Hollowed Out Chest Of A Dead Horse" seems to be a pinnacle point in the album's sound as it twists and turns through movements that range from the violent and toxic to the serene at a drop of the hat. While the album takes a darker turn in this portion, it still never loses the message at hand and eventually becomes a double edged sword of passion and atmosphere.
Through dissonance and darkness, Pg. 99 weave a tapestry of screamo-oriented punk songs that should be in any hardcore fan's selection. Its release of pure human emotion is something to not only marvel at but to take to the grave as a way to be free during the most heart-searing obstacles in life.
