Review Summary: …just know I’m feeling lost too
If You’re Ever Feeling Lost… is an album about imperfection. Its sound is not perfect, the lyrics aren’t perfect in rhythm or cadence or language, Nisan Farber is not a perfect person, and the world he inhabits is not perfect.
If You’re Ever Feeling Lost… is also an album where sometimes it’s okay to
not be okay, where acceptance is the first step, where Nisan Farber can spout a stream of consciousness over twenty-nine minutes about how his ambitions don’t match his reality. This is an album that asks you to surrender to a hurricane of anxiety - and enjoy the ride while you're at it.
Despite sitting comfortably in the pop rock/emo genre, Farber manages to cram a lot of diversity into a small package of songs. Opening track “I’m No Christ” begins with a chiming guitar line reminiscent of Mac DeMarco and slowly progresses to a more varied “Santa Monica"; further into the album, “The Ambien Blues” stays true to its name with a showy, minute-long bluesy solo. What the sound lacks in polish or layers, it makes up for it with dynamics, and the honesty it exudes. You can hear the shakes in Farber's voice as he tries to contain a "Get your mother***ing hands off me," and that overcomes the thinness of his voice and microphone. It’s almost as if Farber and his backing band are playing in a dimly lit cellar just for you, and when the whistle tries to stay synchronised with the synthesiser hook in “Stay That Way,” it’s more endearing than embarrassing.
Farber, as a vocalist and lyricist, never really feels this sort of endearment about himself. Whether he’s surrounded by the folk punk of “The Excitement’s Gone” or just the folk of “Pam,” his tone never really changes: an unstable and low J Mascis drawl, trying to spit his words out as fast as possible, like Alex Turner used to. A longer album would make this grating; here, confined in a half hour of power, Farber makes the strength of his lyrics overcome the weakness of his voice. A mix of extended metaphors and self-deprecating scenarios punctuate the majority of the songs, but it’s a small cry of “Tell me you’re afraid of the dark” that lies at the heart of the album. It’s a need to connect, to communicate with others. We see Farber bring himself down to the floor so much, that when he tries to stand up, he stands out. They help avoid an overload of nihilism and destruction, and without them, Farber would stand as the depressive caricature he never wants to be.
If You’re Ever Feeling Lost… is many walking contradictions sharing the same sidewalk. A whirlwind of emotion and the wish to be emotionless. A capsule of the worst and best time of your life. And that’s okay.
Because
If You’re Ever Feeling Lost… is an album of catharsis, where self-hatred can be locked in a capsule outside of space and time. More so, it’s an album of evolution. As the album winds down, Farber sheds his skin and his previous life. A last supper, or a last stupor, where “we’ll pass out with the best of intentions, with the most beautiful aspirations, and you will never think about me again.” A flash of light, “Setting Fire To Bridges.” And one final burst of power, to reclaim himself and the map out of the woods. “I know who I am.”
