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 Post subject: Today Is The Day - Pain Is A Warning
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:15 pm 

Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2010 8:04 pm
Posts: 64
Location: Numazu-Shi, Japan
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In this day and age it is not very often you listen to a record with virgin ears. I had never listened to Today Is The Day until I listened to ‘Pain is a Warning’; I knew and read so little about them I actually had preconceptions of them being a doom band. A few seconds in to, ironically titled, ‘Expectations Exceed Reality’ told me otherwise. This pacing sick man was not the occult wizard I was expecting, but his stories have certainly enraptured me.

The honesty bared on ‘Pain is a Warning’ could split skin, Steve Austin’s lyrics are tormented with personal struggles and pains that resonate and like all good music it creates an intimate relationship with the listener. Like a confession of a friend’s anxieties or a father’s worried guidance for a wayward child, it’s the often ‘sweeped under the carpet’ dialogue that Austin bares to all. They’re personal struggles that resound with all. On a sensory level, Steve Austin’s almost maniacal murmurs and creepy whispers sit so far out front on the production you can almost feel his warm breath on the back of your neck.

‘Pain is a Warning’ feels like an honest record, a quality that I’ve been seeking for more and more in music. Honesty is far harder to categorize, for example Melvins create honest music, and they’ve achieved so much because they’ve truly expressed themselves. But I couldn’t categorize nor put them in a genre. They surpass those frameworks. From what I have heard of this record it seems Today Is The Day follows suit, it sounds honest, with free, no restrictions, no limitations, expression. And I dig that.

To talk about the Melvins though and not mention their influence that can be heard on ‘Pain is a Warning’ would be scandalous. To me, anyway. I fucking love the Melvins. The unorthodox song writing and the varied dynamics with Steve Austin’s vocals is Buzzo-esque, while the track ‘Remember to Forget’ might as well has been written by him. However, the angular riffage could paint pentagrams and, delving into my very shallow knowledge of progressive hardcore, reminds of latter day Converge and KEN mode, both bands have also been injecting these progressive structures and twinkling riffs that rebound and reflect.

Essentially ‘Pain is a Warning’ sounds like a release. Something has been brimming to the point of vibration so much that it just burst out like a damn, the explosion of vocals on ‘Expectations Exceed Reality’ rockets skywards crashing in to the precipices of cliff edge riffage. Penultimate closer ‘This Is You’ then puts forward the resolve, the astral cure, or acceptance. Enough pacing in the cubicle, accept that you have to move on the break out.

I’ve been really enjoying ‘Pain is a Warning’, it’s opened different doors than my usual stead does, and it opened my eyes to my own ignorance of Today Is The Day’s music. Thoroughly recommended.

-Gaia

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