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While of Unsound Mind by nouns

If I had a nickel for every time I listened to an album from a single emo-punk band at a very emotionally vulnerable time in my life, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, it’s just weird that it’s happened twice.

nouns is one of those groups that's just resonated with me on a deep level, ever since I first listened to their 2014 album still. At the time, I don't think any piece of media had ever captured exactly the kind of thoughts I was having at that exact point in time so accurately. It was like that album was made for me. I instantly fell in love with Hunter Mann's unbridled vocals and the accompanying layers of distorted guitar, percussion, and synth.

8 years later, Hunter once again succinctly captures the essence of finding one's way through life while burdened with mental illness, a longing for human connection, and memories of experiences that changed us, for better or worse. And I mean that not in a "wow, whoever made this must have been fucked in the head / on drugs lol" kind of way. nouns is probably the most genuine in it's presentation I've ever seen in the realms of the emo genre.

While of Unsound Mind isn't for everyone. I think you have to be a very specific kind of person to get the most out of it. It's the most extreme emotional roller coaster you can imagine. The nearly hour-long experience will drag you into head-banging mania, into deep introspective melancholy, into a quiet, uneasy comfort, and back around again.

Track 1, "Interlude", sets the stage with the distinctive sound of nouns: complex layering of percussion and guitar, vocals, and saxophone provided by Donata Greco and Mike Benson. Audibly stimulating and wonderfully noisy. The themes of this album focus a lot on formative memories, both good and bad. Like a stream-of-conciousness walk through someone's life story.

"We Will Never Surface" transitions into a sober and dreamlike recounting of feeling disconnected, dissociated. A half-remembered something that might have happened, maybe not. There's something profoundly worse about feeling nothing rather than something. Feelings are what make memories. Experience makes the person, experiences held in memories, like energy stored in fat. Without memories, what are we?

It's difficult to pick out any tracks as favorites among such a fantastic work, but Tracks 4 and 5 are among them. "Feedback Loop" suddenly launches us into an upbeat j-rock style with vocals by guest singer Yuuko. A song about the fleetingness of memories and the joy that comes from being able to share them with another.

"Amita Drive" is a beautiful homage to ones loved and lost, with soaring vocals by Paranoul and Asami and violin performed by Jared Schmidt.

We take another steep drop on the roller coaster as the next few tracks takes us through a chaotic stream of consciousness, where words become veil to meaning and the psyche is personified through the names of demon lords of old. This portion is the most fun to listen to. Catharsis gives way to rhythmic wordplay, a variety of instruments, and esoteric samples from Japanese media.

I may be biased considering the state of mind I was in when I listened to this album, but the last 5 tracks of While of Unsound Mind are some of the most poignant and meaningful music I've had the pleasure of hearing possibly in my entire life. A grand finale to the journey through the past, realizing that despite everything, you've made it out alive, looking triumphantly forward. No matter what you've forgotten, you can't go back and get them. No matter what memories linger, they made you into the person you are. A wonderfully complex, irrational, ever-changing person.

While of Unsound Mind is available on Bandcamp and Spotify. Please listen to it. Please listen to all of nouns' discography. Please buy a t-shirt. I can't recommend them enough.

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