Review Summary: "Taxi drive me to the end/Let the meter run into the digits I can't spend/Then you'll drive me to the edge/I'll stand upon the precipice and jump to pay my debt...goodbye"
It can be very difficult to write objectively about music. You can say things perpetuating an image of objection like "the musicality of the song is such" or "the technical prowess of the band shows how great they are", but the truth is this - the way one views music is subjective, and unique to each individual. Subjectively, much of my focus is not the technicality of a band's instrumentation but rather the passion with which the instrumentals are played and the way each part unifies with the others. Most importantly, I focus on the passion and emotion rooting in the lyrics and in the vocals. It is with these rose-colored glasses that I value albums like Pinkerton and Phobia. I need to hear the pain, the sadness, the loneliness, the depression dripping from every word. I crave it, to feel justified in my own suffering. Misery loves its company, and I am never more justified when I feel like the men singing on these albums are singing to me specifically because they've been through the same trials that I have. It is with these rose-colored glasses that I have fallen desperately in love with the album entitled "The Blackest Beautiful".
Jason Aalon Butler's performance is easily one of the best any frontman has done in recent memory. This bearded menace's manic rapid fire vocals, passionate delivery, and meteoritic impact of his lyrics are, in a word, emotional. However that single word cannot describe it. Jason vocalizes his lyrics by punctuating his soulful croons with rusty screams (it might be the other way around) with an almost schizophrenic behavior. To listen to him perform is like getting a right hook in the jaw followed by the left with every line articulated. The only comparison I can bring to mind, if there is any, is if Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots decided to go hardcore. The emotions, from anger, disgust, sarcasm, and pain drip like water through a sieve in every line of every song. The themes are typical punk literature, from love and suicide to disgust with society and the government. However, it's how Butler presents these topics that catapult him heads and shoulders over the rest of his peers. Just look at the heart-wrenching suicide note of "Virgin Dirt", and the rousing anti-capitalist protest "White Amerca's Beautiful Black Market" as examples. This man fires a gun at everyone, including himself. No one is safe from his crossfire. And yet, it's tempting, nay, even comforting to sympathize with him, feeling the same internal turmoil at myself and the same disgust with our society as he does.
While Butler's astounding performance remains center stage throughout the album, the rest of the band should not be ignored - to do so would be a tremendous injustice. His bandmates are spectacular musicians by any standard. Stylistically, the band plays a brand of frenetic post-hardcore more akin to the styling of DC hardcore punk than that of their peers. The drumming is top notch, leading the band rhythmically in perfect synchronization with Butler's schizophrenic vocals. Sounding much like Nirvana's grunge riffing sped up, the guitars duel to the drum's cadences with the ferocity and discordant passion of Anakin and Obi-Wan's duel on Mustafar. Humming just beneath the surface is the bass, ebbing and flowing with perfect timing with the rest of the band. Like a well oiled machine, every band member knows his place, supporting the others. Acting like a single organism, they explode into chaos and show restraint in equal needed parts. Songs like the introspective "Younger", tender "Virgin Dirt", the hip-hop thrash beat down of "Banshee (Ghost Frame)" and the nuclear catharsis of emotion on "27 Club" all show perfectly Letlive.'s cohesive identity. These guys are not just Butler's backing band; they're a force to be reckoned with. I paraphrase Brad Pitt's line in Fight Club, "Do not fuck with [them]".
"The Blackest Beautiful" strikes a chord in my emotionally torn heart, perhaps kick starting the healing process. Through my rose colored glasses I see now how I am not alone in my struggles, Jason Aalon Butler feels me. The moments of beauty interspersed throughout all the pain and suffering vocalized in this album mirror, to my eyes, perfectly life in reality. There may be cracks in this reflection - faults, if you will, in its formation. But my deep, emotional connection with this album predisposes me to ignore any imperfections. Objectively, I might say "this is the best punk album released in the new millennium, and the reasons why are listed above" but I know the truth. Subjectively, and truthfully, I will say this; This is the best punk album I've ever heard because of the way it soothes my ragged soul.
