Review Summary: Forget what you know, forget that it hurt.
American Nightmare (AKA Give up the Ghost) is a Boston hardcore band created by Wes Eisold (Cheap Girls, Cold Cave) and Tim Cossar (Ex-Ten Yard Fight). Sick of the 'tough-guy', PMA style of hardcore that was becoming over done, saturated, and 'dime a dozen' in Boston in the late 90's American Nightmare was formed from heartbreak, depression, pain, and anger. And what Eisold and AN created in their 2001 masterpiece was nothing short of scene saving.
Eisold spits and spews his venomous prose over 11 blistering tracks while machine gun paced snare drums and guitars lay the perfect background. Falling in and out of deliberate musical cadence to anthemic shouts, "Background Music" doesn't run dry of itself. Songs like "AM/PM" use repetition of lines and phrases over pounding drums and guitars, while "Hearts" focuses on the dichotomy of music and vocals and the strength of a singular voice. "Oh my god, it happened again, what the f*** is wrong with me?" screams over a singular feedback tone until the entire band rejoins him to create catharsis in a musical moment.
It's no surprise that people hear this album and cling to it in the dark times. It's no surprise that people hear this album and use it as a life line, use it as their dairy, and use it as their 1 am friend. With lines like "I left my heart in yesterday (remember how it used to be), I shot myself full of memory", and "I was hoping that I'd never fall in love again", it's no surprise people use this album as therapy. Delving deeper and deeper into Eisold's mind we find a broken, shattered, and depressed individual that has found his purposeful soapbox to deliver and self medicate himself.
"Background Music" doesn't demand your attention, hell, it doesn't even ask for it. It steals your attention and screams it back to you in your face. Eisold and American Nightmare created an album that will go on to influence a decade of emotional hardcore and dang, we are grateful for it, and you just might become a better person after embracing it.
