The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
Dreams of Being Dust
EPITAPH
The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. It’s a moniker comprised of two distinct yet interlinked declarations, and ever since the band formed in 2009, the first one has only become less accurate. Of course, there is still beauty to be found in this world, but it seems increasingly hard to come by these days, much of it obscured by the by-products of capitalism—war, famine, genocide, racism, for-profit healthcare, increased wealth disparity, homelessness, environmental catastrophe, microplastics killing us from the inside out, etc., etc.—that are driven by the imperialist oligarchs and plutocrats of the ruling class. Marx, if he were able, would be turning in his grave.
But he would also probably be very much into Dreams of Being Dust, the fifth album from the Philadelphia-based band (the ideology of it, at least—not sure he’d go for the collaborations with members of END and Full of Hell). Because this is a record that directly and overtly addresses the hole that humans have not just dug for ourselves with our subservience to capitalism, but are also gleefully burying ourselves in. After all, we want the brand new iPhone when it’s released, and what’s wrong with forsaking the local community in favor of Amazon’s more convenient next-day delivery service? And what about ChatGPT? It might be destroying the environment in tandem with our critical thinking skills, but it’s just so useful, you know?
This record is a powerful rejection of all of that. It’s a rejection of the status quo and those who uphold it, a rejection of the complacency of both the public and the politicians who’ve allowed things to get this bad in the first place. It’s even something of a rejection of the band’s old identity—the post-rock tendencies that would creep into their songs, and the underlying majesty and beauty that held them together—for something very different, indeed. Those elements are most certainly related. Take, for example, “Beware the Centrist.” It’s a bloodthirsty blast of political invective disguised as hardcore that’s possibly more brutal than anything the band has ever released, and, through abstract lyrical imagery, warns about the damning (in)effects of the politically moderate in much the same way that Malcolm X once did.
That’s just for starters. It would take too long to point out every political reference contained within these songs, but suffice to say that the title of “December 4th, 2024” refers to when United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was (allegedly) assassinated by Luigi Mangione, while “Auguries of Guilt” exposes how it’s always the victor who writes the history books alongside a devastatingly poetic depiction of the genocide in Gaza. But as overt as this is on the whole, it’s also subtle, the politics wrapped in metaphor and symbolism, whether that’s the eternities-spanning opener “Dimmed Sun” or the slouching beast of “Oubliette.” One of the most tender and beautiful songs here, the latter explores political devastation in tandem with a more personal kind of introspection. “Love is just loss before it happens,” sings vocalist David Bello dreamily, almost pleasantly, in an attempt to hide the full destructive weight of that lyric.
Elsewhere, “Captagon” (look it up) becomes a brutal behemoth of a song in places, while “Reject All and Submit” feels like Armageddon, a world writhing with its one final breath before it finally dies. That’s because the heaviness isn’t just in the music and the riffs. It’s in the words, the themes, the intent of this record. It captures the tragedy of humans turning what could and should have been a beautiful world into something that, now, is probably beyond saving. As long as the corrupt systems remain in place, this is a stunning, haunting, and harrowing soundtrack with which to witness our own demise. Somewhere, Marx is nodding his head as the hypnotic gravity of “For Those Who Will Outlive Us” closes out this album in a spiral of beautiful despair and anguish.
