Review Summary: A beautiful contradiction, as complex as life itself.
There's no grand opening to The Dismemberment Plan's seminal Emergency & I. Absent are soaring soundscapes, blasts of energy, or piercing, immediate lyrics to grab the listener by the throat. Instead, there's a cymbal hit. A break. A low, buzzing synthesizer. Then, Travis Morrison's roller coaster falsetto to kick off what is arguably the greatest piece of music he will ever create.
Really, though, how could it start any other way?
In an album that categorizes the euphoric highs and maniacal lows of human existence through a painstakingly meaningless worldview, how could it open grandly? There weren't horns blaring when we emerged from nothing, the sun didn't shine through the clouds to welcome us. Rather, on a day like any other day, our lives began. On the same type of day, one similar to the view out of your window right now, you'll die. CNN won't air your obituary, the planes wont be grounded, your loved ones will still return to slumber hours after you're buried in the ground.
But Travis wants you to know something - that's okay.
It's okay because we're all part of the beautiful contradiction. The balance between loving life and knowing it has to end. Realizing that no second of happiness comes without months of despair. The same way "A Life of Possibilities" and "You Are Invited" clash, an optimistic outlook will ultimately end the same way a pessimistic one would. Even on the penultimate track, "8 1/2 Minutes" where Travis almost begs "When I die I'm going to heaven, leave it all to the cockroaches at the 7-Elevens. But it would be nice to think that we could get it right down here just once.", he sets up the beautiful conclusion the album-long contraction.
On the final track, The Dismemberment Plan provides something that, had it been excluded, would have changed the entire album. Over a drum and bass fueled track, Travis almost raps over the wave-like guitars in an unfamiliar sense of optimism. As the song winds to a close, he showcases one of the greatest verses he has ever written, one that perfectly sums up the album in it's entirety:
So in the end, whatever, we die, we dissolve
Equations unbalanced, riddles unsolved
And we were never connected or involved
Except for the intersections and crazy mathematics
With no time and no space and no schedule and no place
And they pass right through us without a trace
And sometimes that music drifts through my car
On a spring night when anything is possible
And I close my eyes and I nod my head
And I wonder how you been and I count to a hundred and ten
Because you’ll always be my hero, even if I never see you again
There's no answer to the previous questions the album raised, there's no response to his own crazed vocals on tracks like "I Love A Magician" or "Girl O'Clock". Rather, it accepts them. Travis acknowledges the past as the past and accepts that even the depressive lows we reach are part of the necessary human experience. "Back & Forth" acts as the light towards the future, the unquestionable optimism that we all must take up and march forward with. If we're here, and we're only here once, why waste time stuck over the things that kept us down?
After Travis' final verse on Emergency & I, a bubbly keyboard kicks in. The song winds on for a few more minutes.
And then, just as quickly as it started, just as sudden as we were thrust into the world, just as effortlessly as we'll leave it...it ends.
