Review Summary: It takes guts to be this depressing.
Waking up takes guts. Facing the day sometimes requires a level of bravery that can feel unmanageable. Those words “Brave Faces Everyone” as the title of Spanish Love Song’s 2020 album sting just as much as when The Killer’s sings “smile like you mean it” On Hut Fuss. The way you present yourself is often not going to reflect the way you feel, but sometimes you must fake a grin and say, as front man Dylan Slocum does, “Man, I just want to survive.”
I have never heard an album with a more depressing bluntness than Spanish Love Song’s Brave Faces Everyone, and it is that bluntness that can bring you to tears. When a punk rock song structures a perfect metaphor that describes how you feel in a way you could not express, it is a beautiful thing. I have had this happen with many albums over the years and there are certain lyrics that have inspired me to become a better writer and to seek out other ways to express myself through writing.
…but when a man on a song simply screams “don’t take me out back and shoot me” or “my bleak mind says it’s cheaper just to die,” it is tragic. The directness of this record is excruciating. It plays like a boiling point for someone who has been trying so hard to hide their true feelings in a carefully wrapped metaphor but has instead chosen to let the words exist exactly as they are. Brave Faces Everyone is not a record about hiding your feelings – it is about finally unleashing them on the world.
While depression is nothing new to this genre, exposing it this personally feels oddly refreshing. I have told a few friends about this album (some of whom do not normally listen to this style of music) and have gotten responses back like “this really hits me” or “I really get this.” It is that universal appeal that Spanish Love Songs have tapped into that I find the most fascinating – by exposing your true, gloomy self, you are embracing so many people who are feeling the same way and need to know they are not alone.
My wife has heard me listen to this album and asks why I gravitate towards stuff that is so sad. I have thought about that question a lot while writing this. As unhappy as these songs may seem, they offer a certain joyful catharsis by turning your most miserable thoughts into rock anthems. I consider myself a very positive person, but I do not think anyone can completely deny distressing thoughts that sometimes boil beneath the surface. I, like most, hide those feelings away in fear of having them disrupt my optimistic outlook. However, facing these dreadful thoughts head on, as this record does, can be its own sort of therapy. Now everything is out in the open, instead of hiding in the bottom of a drawer.
So, what is there to complain about? Being a young adult in 2021, fear of not living up to your expectations, complacency, rejection, white guilt, inadequacy, and learning to accept yourself for the way you are – however hopeless that can sometimes feel. In a particularly riveting bridge, Slocum sings: “Am I gonna be this down forever? Am I gonna be this dumb forever? Am I gonna be this gone forever? Am I gonna be this numb forever?”
It may be a stretch, but upon repeated listens, the album even seems to tap into the frustrations of being a man in general. and the urge we often feel to bury feelings away. Slocum sums it up perfectly in the opening track, Routine Pain: “I don't know you, or why you care but the devil's loose inside and I'm so sick of saying sorry when I cry.”
At no point does Brave Faces Everyone offer any kind of answer or attempt at a solution. Instead, it simply gives the listener a safe space to vent your aggravations. Life is not hopeless, and I do not think the record ever intends you to end your listen on that note, but it also does not urge you to keep on pretending everything is fine when it is not. We are all human and we all have room to grow. We all also have things we want to scream at the top of our lungs about and sometimes the right songs can push those words right out of us.
The ending of Brave Faces Everyone tells the world that no matter how hard things are, you should not be so hard on yourself. Keep surviving. Keep living. Put on a brave face and keep trying your best. To quote its final words -
“We don't have to fix everything at once. We were never broken, life's just very long. Brave faces, everyone.”
