The “Marionette” album was released on May 5th, 2023 and can be listened to on bandcamp here: https://nolongerhuman.bandcamp.com/album/marionette
You see I am in my late forties and a lot of this dark electro stuff sounds extremely naive and childish to me. Sometimes I wonder how adult or even mature guys can keep a straight face singing the nonsense they sing.
This stuff can get cringy very fast.
When I started listening to “Marionette”I found myself slowly releasing my internal filter that makes me not process the content of the lyrics in order to be able to consume the otherwise enjoyable music.
What the guy sang actually made sense, and had a meaning. What a change.
You know, I have no problem with someone singing that he is a psychopathic clown wielding a chainsaw and so on. It has it’s place in the genre.
But I would rather think that dark electro musicians have something important to say. Shallow lyrics take away the force from this music – at least for me.
On the album’s description you can read:
“I set out to make a collection of songs that try to define the things that quietly control us in the background. Songs about our addictions, our compulsions, and the needs and struggles of the human condition.“
“Marionette” hits hard as it meticulously goes through our shortcomings and sins, one by one.
There is a few songs I particularly like, the first that caught my attention was “Shattered”.
It screams “tyrannical parent” all over the place. It is like written by a psychologist. It is not a song, but a diagnosis.
“Tear me open
Break me all apart
Shatter me, Ruin me
Make me feel your insecurity“
What a perfect depiction of an insecure abuser. To me this is way scarier than shallow clown with a chainsaw. Maybe because it is real.
Pain Tolerance takes us for a ride into the world of a manipulative influencer who in fact is hollow and unable to experience real emotions.
There are folks like that, in the real life. We worship them, while they are just a “hollow effigy“.
I am telling you, we will end up burning these influencers at the stake one day (I made such comment on Facebook once and nearly got banned – so much of freedom of speech on this platform). And it will be well deserved for a change, given the carnage they are causing in young people’s psyche.
Threapy deals with society demanding and providing an easy fix to psychological suffering. It questions protecting oneself from emotions and feeling at any cost, because even if unpleasant, they make us human after all.
Suffering makes us change – you can’t deny this.
Every song on the album is worth a bit of analysis, and it is a good thing. It certainly adds value, at least for folks like me who look for deeper thoughts, who expect music to have a message.
I have never been a great fan of nolongerhuman. I saw these covers that suggested great love for large bugs – a somewhat disturbing thing – but I never got interested enough to dig deeper. I judged the book by the cover and thought there can’t be much to it.
But now I will and I really recommend you do too.
There is more behind those bugs, and I am going to find out what it is. I kind of suspect that behind all this there is a person who had his share of shit, weathered it out and came out the other end – not neccessarily stronger, but alive.
Whatever you are going through yourself – try listening as it may let you see the light at the end of your tunnel.
If the guy behind nolongerhuman thinks there is something wrong with the society and times we live in – well there is two of us now.