From blood curdling screams to gentle croons, Salem’s Corydalis, off of the new California indie label Deapth Pop Records, have put together a visceral and vulnerable album of twenty one songs (“pretty much the album I’ve always wanted to make”), that brings to the surface (or captures well) the feelings of love and rejection a young, longing, earnest, and beating heart feels. “I hate this / I just want you,” the album starts, as-a-matter-of-fact, on the organ/guitar lead-off track, “I Should Have Tried Harder,” and everything following it are the slings and arrows that may befall us, in the pursuit of genuine connection and desire. “Do you realize what’s at stake here? / I won’t just lay and wait here.”
Sam, the bloody brains and brawn behind the band, says that he was happy to work in a number of different styles on the album, (an album long enough that it affords ample opportunity,) and it covers screamo, indie dreamscape, a bit of electronica, and straight noise assault, all in an album that has the cohesiveness and adventurousness of an ill-fated play, (think Romeo and Juliet,) but in the language of a teenager or twenty-something. Some of my favorite parts of the record are the intricate keyboard lineaments that show the band’s adept musicality, though there are many musical highlights.
It is an album that helps us delve into the fears and pains and desires, in trying to connect with others. But where many people tend to steer clear or distract themselves from the heartache of expectation, Salem Corydalis take it head on. “I just wanted to be one with you / I couldn’t take / all this pain / that it came with.” Both the lyrics and the music push into hyper emotional territory, though the repetitiveness of both can wear on you on such a lengthy album, and the recording would benefit from the studio treatment.
It is in line, however, with the aesthetic of fifth wave emo music coming out right now, and offers an unfiltered look into the heartbreak, social anxiety, high expectations, and, ultimately, wisdom of the gen Z generation. “I’ll die before I’m ever proud of myself / But I’m too uncomfortable to try and be somebody else.” Where older generations may pat themselves on the back for their accomplishments, and often try to fit into the molds they think society expects of them, this generation, it seems, is zealous in their brutal honesty and devout in their quest for genuine personal identity. If there’s one overarching theme, it is that “true love is painful.” And the soundtrack captures that feeling well.
Prism Reviews 