Review Summary: This is the sound of growth and triumph.
It is hard to describe exactly what you're hearing when you're listening to this band. At its core, this album is simply an emotional mess with abrasive shrieks that are almost too much to take, and sloppy guitar playing and drumming. As you look inside this album, though, you will find so much more.
The album starts out with an extremely strange three minute instrumental piece, that is simply just guitars being played in such a way that it envelops me and sends me into a trance, this album truly has one of the greatest intro pieces to any screamo album ever. From there you hear one of the band members let out a high-pitched screech, very similar to the break before everything gets crazy in the song by The Kodan Armada titled No Has Never Had Three Letters. Much like that song, after the shriek the drums are wailed on and the madness ensues with vocals that are so expressive they are almost unbearable.
The albums follows suit with the same formula, pouring out emotions of love, heartbreak, sadness, anger, and indescribable feelings all the while retaining I Wrote Haikus' use of tremolo riffs, energetic drumming, and passionate vocals. I Wrote Haikus' show that they can pull off post-rock with their song Untitled 9, in which they repeat the line "Surviving a broken heart is hard, but once you do survive you realize you were stronger than you ever knew." The lyrics on this album are hyper-emotional describing desperate love and horrible loss, with all songs containing an explanation in the sheet that comes with the album, showing that I Wrote Haikus is all about how they feel, and how we feel as human beings.
It's very hard to put my feelings about this album into words. I find it infinitely relatable, depressing, and uplifting all at the same time. I highly recommend this to any fan of screamo, or emotional and artistic music in general. I would certainly say this is an underrated gem for anyone looking for true emotion in their music.
