Let me tell y’all about a rad album by a rad band! The band is called Melancholia and the album is called Book of Ruination which is out now on Brutal Panda. This record is a Noise Rock audio blast of Caustic Bliss. Now it’s time for y’all to peep a track-by-track breakdown of Book of Ruination by Melancholia.
Book of Ruination
There is a permeating sense of dread that has encapsulated the world over the past few years. Every generation has had its challenges, and perhaps it’s the oversaturation of outrage in the modern news cycle, but humanity appears to be on the tipping point of ruin. We may have already passed that threshold.
I wrote the vast majority of these songs during the pandemic in lockdown, and while it did mean I had far too much time to ruminate in negativity, I was afforded the opportunity to experiment musically.
Noah and I tracked this album with our good friend Rich Canut III at the Unknown Studios in Anacortes, WA. We took 4 days in the late summer of ’22. We almost lost it all due to computer fuckery,
I prefer to write lyrics from the perspective of the subject as a malevolent force, and each track addresses a different subject of anxiety. The overarching theme of this album is impending doom.
Ode to Ruination
A brief drum intro, like an oncoming storm and we begin. The ruling class sets the starving populace on the warpath for Mother Earth herself. In the end there’s nothing left but tears and ashes in their wake. To put it plainly, greed and rabid capitalism will be the death of us. This was the first song written for the album. It’s straight to the point both musically and lyrically, and I felt that it was always going to be the song that set the stage for what the album would ultimately become.
Sunscathed
The upbeat tempo of this song is a bit off-kilter for me. I wanted to emulate the final scene of The Seventh Seal where (spoilers) all the characters are taken by and caught up in the dance of death. Ultimately the lyrics are about climate change. It’s here, it’s inevitable, it will be catastrophic, and we all just keep to the beat.
Circadian Throes
I hadn’t written a song in ¾ before for this project, so I made that a goal for this release. This track has an interesting split between clean, composed, almost baroque interludes and just flat out mindless blackened doom. It brought to mind the monotony of a work day, how futile it can feel, and the lie we are all told about moving up in the world. The pawn reaches the end of the board and is removed regardless.
Yersinia in Bloom
The Pesta was a folklore legend among the peasantry of medieval Europe during the black death. She skulked from town to town, bringing the plague to its inhabitants, leaving few unscathed. It wasn’t a stretch to draw the comparison with COVID and to see how humans are very much the same superstitious animals.Brief but furious, the song reflects on how history repeats itself.
No Place of Honor
This track serves as a little breather for us, slowing down to a tempo more in line with our previous EP, Static Church. This was written after the war in Ukraine began and the Cold War era fear of nuclear annihilation reared its skin peeled head once again.
Caught in Eternity’s Jaws
More thematically broad than the rest of this album’s tracks, this one addresses the uncertainty of life. I had this vision of God, or the Universe, Whatever, as a cosmic chimera. A vicious but aloof animal that toys with us and consumes us, but is otherwise indifferent to our suffering and beyond our capacity to influence. I think the song demonstrates this in how it is structured, showcasing the band at our most bombastic and most tender.
Din of Gangrene Angels
The final track and the one I’m most proud of. It is true for the album as a whole, but for this one in particular I wanted Noah’s talent and creativity to shine through and he exceeded at every turn. Seriously, what? Listen to those drums.
Lyrically it’s this: “fuck you” to every right wing christofascist. Your rhetoric is cancer.
The drums from the intro of Ode to Ruination thunder in reverse.
The End. Thanks for listening.
