The Last Years - The After
Review by Karl Magi
Overall Album Impressions
The Last Years's The After is a powerfully affecting, musically lush and lyrically expressive musical exploration of hope, love, pain and longing. It weaves together strong vocal performances with skilled guitar playing and interwoven synth sounds.
One of the most effective aspects of “The After” is the lead singer’s voice. He has a strong, extremely expressive and wide-ranging voice that captures the emotional tenor of the lyrics. There’s an aspect of his voice that manages to be both powerful and full of melancholy, imbuing each word with deep feeling.
I also find the lyrical content of the songs on “The After” a major draw for me. The lyrics are well-crafted and capable of reaching deep into my heart and extracting the emotion within me. The way in which the words explore complex and contradictory feelings is clear and hard-hitting. I appreciate the skill that went into their writing here.
This album effectively uses the other musical elements to support the lyrics and vocal performances. The guitar has an expressive quality to it, the synths that weave through the music are all well suited to complement the singing and the drums and bass create a strong underpinning. Taken together, the musical backing helps the vocals and lyrics to shine.
My Favourite Songs Analyzed
“Past Lives” comes into being as shining, hollow synths ripple quickly over metallic percussion and expand. A bright electric guitar flashes out in slowly unfolding notes and spinning, shimmering synth arpeggios are guided by the pulsating drumbeat. The lead singer’s strong, resonant voice fills the song, carrying the aching vocal melody and skillfully imbuing the words with deep feeling.
Drums throb and propel the music onwards as the guitar spins out a tightly woven line. The rising expression in the lead singer’s voice joins the as guitar cascades and gleams over the steady drums and solid bass throb. The vocals leap out, emotive and soaring, the melody tinged with nostalgic yearning. Glowing arpeggios dance and the drums add shape below the soaring vocals as the guitar also yearns and climbs.
Our narrator looks back at the layers of our lives and their lingering influences. As the song begins, he speaks of looking “behind the paths we shared” for the memories there that are “so few and proud.” He talks about how we are coming closer to “the falling edge.” As we slip down, we are “losing ground in the fight we’ve made, promises we’ve held.”
The storyteller talks about the different lives within our own lifetime that hold us down. He goes on to say that “we’ll find our way” as we search for the liens that “call out and beg for clarity” as well as those that “we draw through sand and time” as they ask for certainty.
Now the narrator states that “behind each heart is a failing love” that fades out. He speaks of the “old bones of our wasted years” feeling nearer. There’s a heart-wrenching poignancy as the narrator speaks of the “lives we lost and gave away, our youth is dead and gone.”
Bending, shadowed synth with a nasal quality is swept by flowing winds as “Small Hours” opens. A steady bass throb moves as the vocal melody caresses the listener’s ears. The lead singer’s voice is intensely expressive and and the vocal melody is softly touching.
Trembling synth vibrates before the drums thunder and the lead singer’s voice leaps upward again, full of deep feeling. The song moves into a segment in which fragile, tremulous synth vibrates over gently throbbing bass. The guitar charges, the drums batter and the lead singer’s powerful voice soars pleasingly out over the glittering guitar.
Now the guitar’s extended notes glide, flashing over the heaving drum weight and rumbling bass. The vocals hurt and hope as the guitar trips out in resonant notes. The drums and the reaching vocal melody echo alone before the guitar flickers out again. The song ends in an impassioned intertwining of rippling synth and crying guitar.
Life is a struggle between our darker and lighter feelings and impulses. The storyteller speaks of being “deep in the quiet now” and as he’s surrounded by stillness he is just “holding on.” He says that he’s unable to move as the dark night “holds me down and never looks back.”
Our narrator talks about reaching out for a helping hand but only finding “the lies that we’ve held tight.” He goes on to speak about our hearts “failing in the light” as our dreams die along with our pride. In the end, we have to “push through to make it through the night.”
As life unfolds we find ourselves walking through “the dust and the pain” to which we’ll close our hearts and “wipe away the heartache.” Inevitably we wait “for the morning to come to fight the night again” and wipe the heartache away. As the song ends, our storyteller says “We close our eyes and push through to find the light.
“Out Of Focus” starts as massive drums clash and a bass flow adds a softer weight underneath them. Swirling synths interlock and a bright guitar with an open feeling carries lightly slipping notes that float through over the drum pulses. The guitar has a loose-limbed quality that I find quite attractive.
The lead vocals are soft but strong, emotion pouring from the gentle melody that they carry over the oscillating synth background. The drums add needed direction to this song. The lead singer’s voice trembles and mourns as the distant guitar carries over the gigantic drums and underpinning bass.
Now angular synth vibrates underneath the other musical elements. As the drums pulse, the guitar howls upwards before the singer’s strong, emotional voice calls out once more. The glittering guitar accents the music as the song fades on fragile chimes and swirling breezes.
There are many ways in which to fail and stumble in life, but people seem bound to repeat old errors. The narrator talks about how he’s “fallen on this sword so many times that I’ve lost count.” He adds that it is all we know so “what’s one more?” Our narrator points out that the “broken bones” won’t let him go but says “they’re all we know, that’s something.”
The storyteller muses that “our misspent lives” form the paths that we leave in our wake but “it’s all we know” as we all fall down. Eventually “the lines that mark our faces fade to dust” but “we fall” and it’s still all we know. In vain we “reach for fools and comfort” as we “fall through the darkness.”
Ominous, shadowy sounds shift darkly into open space and a flowing, deep synth carries a roaming, vibrating note pattern to commence “The After.” The flowing synth notes climb triumphantly, buzzing above throbbing drums. Now the vocals cry out, adding a sense of mingled emotions that I feel fits the lyrics well.
The angular synth wall moves again, the drums driving on as the lead singer’s voice flies out to fill the song with deep expression and energy. The guitar slices out in bright, impassioned lines before the darker, gentler synth flow moves. Drums cascade and powerful synth leaps up along with the guitars that coruscate with feeling to match the earnest expression in the lyrics. The guitar slows and moves in shining lines that float into quiet.
This song examines heartbreak and loss as it unfolds. The storyteller talks about how he has to pick his heart off the floor adding that “it’s broken but we’ve been here before.” In his mind there’s a “worn out tape” that he’ll listen to as he “hear(s) the way I feel tonight.” Now the narrator shuts his eyes and as he crosses the line, he says “it’s cold but I’m on my way.”
As the broken relationship in the song fell apart, the narrator says that they ran out of time and went “drifting through the fighting” before being “buried by goodbyes.” They now find themselves “underneath the after” but that’s alright as “the after won’t mind.”
Our storyteller points out that a “slow and steady call” is comforting “in these moments.” He says that as their “song nears the end” they will be alright and start again. He concludes, “I open my eyes one last time and it's cold and I'm on my way.”
“Floods” opens as swirling synth tides move under shining higher notes that shiver through the music. Wide, gleaming guitar forms a dancing pattern as sharper-edged guitar cuts through in a dynamic, energizing line over the drum and bass motion below. The lead singer’s voice mingles power, emotion and an underlying ache that I find quite moving.
A climbing, strong chorus explodes over the textured guitars, full of intense feeling. The guitar briefly moves alone before the shaping beat comes in again and the vocals burn with emotion. Trembling synth vibrates in and the guitars charge in a hard-hitting line. A guitar solo cries out, flowing in a rough-edged melody mingling loss, hope and dreamy feelings as xylophone-like sounds add richness. The song comes to an end on trailing guitar.
Love is a wistful and heartbreaking thing and this song explores those feelings. As the song begins, the narrator speaks of “ripping through the cover” that moves through the darkness. He says that for those who knew it from the start, it was a “broken whisper.” The narrator muses that if they could be “the last lovers tangled in forever, failing to become one” then with a “clever parting glance” that put blame beneath them, the song’s subject “knew we’d never stand a chance.”
Conclusion
The After is an album that effectively combines all of its musical, lyrical and vocal elements to create an emotive, expressive examination of the impossibly complex mess that human beings all have to muddle through in our lives.
To find more info on The Last Years, visit them on Bandcamp here
