If you were to climb a very tall hill overlooking the ocean and sit there watching the state of California slip slowly into the Pacific Ocean, what would you hear? Would you hear the snap of roots, the creaking crack of pavement and rupturing pipes or would you hear a song? This song would slowly unwind, spoiling out around you in distinct threads of sound, snaking its way down to the waters edge, taking with it the last vestige of civilization and security. Would you be afraid?
This image of destruction and passive witness is an apt descriptor for the new album by EMA, aka Erika M Anderson. Past Life Martyred Saints joins the leagues of classic indie rock albums that deal with the disintegration of...well, everything...of relationships, of mental stability, of life. Which is not to say that Anderson forgoes all hope in some vain search for meaning, she does find, however briefly, that life can be worth living, even with all the fucked up things people do. And we are witness to it.
Anderson takes what was already finely honed from her recently departed band Gowns and uses her ability to marry images and emotion to particular sounds and phrases and invests these songs with a fear and desperation unequalled this year. The constantly moving, deceptively amorphous opener "The Grey Ship" and follow up fuck-off "California" provide one of the most harrowing introductions to an album full of the hopelessness common to those with a pessimistic view of the world. These songs use the swirling headspace noise common to the Gowns and takes them further, into the kind of intensely personal examinations which ultimately resemble nothing so much as a tired heart laid bare. But without the confidence and tested will to push these songs forward, we may as well be looking at a painting in a museum, feeling appreciative though not moved. And it is here that Anderson displays her real skill at composition. Each of these songs feel a part of something, a larger view of the inner workings of one woman's fears and buried hopes. She paints a vivid though cautious portrait of herself, working within what she considers the darkest recesses of her mind. Though to her maybe not so dark, maybe just honest. And if this album bears out one over-arching theme, it is honesty. No matter how bad this world gets, she will never lie to you. And for no matter how brief a time, when she opens up on the devastating closer "Redstar", Anderson allows herself to revel in that temporary hope which has eluded her for so long.
Tracklisting:
01. The Grey Ship
02. California (listen to the mp3 below)
03. Anteroom
04. Milkman
05. Coda
06. Marked
07. Breakfast
08. Butterfly Knife
09. Redstar
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