Few albums have been a steady companion through my life since their release through the present day. One of these albums is Skeletons, by Nothingface. Fronted by vocalist (and now dead man - more on that later) Matt Holt, it is a powerful album from some troubled men.
Released in April 2003, it was the final album the band would ever release, and it was the result of a torrent of bad stuff happening to most of the band members.
A review of the album on All Music explains that Holt was suffering from a substance abuse issue - and had his house burn down. The guitarist lost their mother. The bass player was going through a divorce, and they lost a drummer.
I don't know anyone who has asked me about this band. I don't think many people have ever head about Nothingface. They were a pretty vulgar, loud, thrash metal and hardcore band that sometimes sounded like Nickelback (surprise!), or something that could almost be radio friendly.
Fast forward to today, and vocalist Matt Holt is dead at 39, having passed away in 2017, the result of a degenerative illness . My copy of Skeletons is well loved, and encased in a scratched up jewel case, and now, it gets to have a few thousand more spins as I try to figure out why on Earth I liked (and still do like) this album so much, beyond the cover art, beyond the sprawling fold-out cover insert with angrily scrawled, handwritten lyrics, which mirror the violence inherent in the music and its powerful delivery.
This is an album of thirteen songs, and they're so incredibly diverse.
Machination
It starts quietly, for at least the first thirty seconds, before the opening track, Machination shows its true colours. From whispers to screams, this is a song about conspiracy, governmental control - and probably extreme paranoia - which are all ongoing themes of the album.
Approached with caution and moderation, these themes are not as maniacal as they are presented verbatim, but are likely deliberately exaggerated in an effort to make people pay attention.
Holt is magnificent at transitioning from clean vocals to absolutely strained, aggressive, vitriol filled hate. His clean voice is a falsetto, marvellous, and airy, full of head voice, with a bit of a nasal overtone, but the screams are also divine, deep, guttural - even if they sound demonic and irritating to one's throat. Holt has fantastic control over his voice, and excellent contrast with the lyrics bringing an additional layer.
Clean lyrics:
Now don't disappoint me
And do what you're told
Be patient
We'll be calling you
Screamed, guttural lyrics:
That's what he says to me
The voice in my mind
Controlled by a subconscious shadow
Paranoid freewill confined
It contrasts so well. It is a powerful opening track, even though it starts ever so quietly, with a literal whisper. The guitars contrast, too, with the vocals. It moves back and forth from clean to heavy distortion, and the drums - oh the drums, so many cymbals and crashing. It's a rich soundscape for a band that is only comprised of four men.
Beneath
If your head swivels around thinking "uh, is this the same band?" When Beneath starts playing you would easily be forgiven. Holt's vocals are there, clean, falsetto, and a nice four four beat with drums, crashing cymbals, and the type of guitar you'd expect of the era - mild distortion, but clean, progressive chords.
But the magic in this album for me, is always the way the lyrics are written, and in the turn of phrase. The way when some things are delivered clean have so much impact on the see-saw that is this album's range of styles. Telling time is hard when it rewinds is the line that opens up this track, and it sets the tone for the rest of the song which is about - to some extent, self-loathing, struggle, and hatred for the other - but perhaps, also for the self:
So it's fine if you can't define
All the reasons for losing your mind
But if I could turn back time
I'd walk and pretend it's a lie
No faces, no voices
No pain invading choices
No control, all chaos
A severed screaming circus
This song is a mighty fine precursor to the next one, but again, when I mentioned the see-sawing nature of this album - this song does not sound at all like thrash metal. You could hear this on a commercial radio station in the mid 2000s, just as accessible as Alien Ant Farm, 3 Doors Down, or the like. But it does not prepare you for the utter vitriol that follows in the next track. This is an angry, emotional album and it builds slowly, until it hypnotises and envelops you fully.
Murder is Masturbation
Yes, you read that title correctly. This is a seething song. It starts clean, though, but with some heavy, pronounced guitar, before it descends into the madness thrash metal, the likes of which Pantera, Machinehead, and other thrash and hardcore bands pioneered. Only, there's a groovy, out of place bass line that makes you want to move your hips.
And that's not intended as a Freudian slip relating to the title. The chorus in this track is a repetitious mantra: I'm not alright, but I'm OK. That's probably a reasonable mind set for the whole album, but in particular, this song, which very aggressively refers back to the title.
But before that comes through, quite powerfully (and in the moments inbetween)
I found the easy way to die
Just educate myself and pretend
All I've learned's untrue
And yeah, I know that
All I'll lose is you
Before the descent into true madness, that concludes the song - trying to arrive at some sort of climax: (pun totally intended)
That motherfucker
Kill that motherfucker
Kill that motherfucker
And that's all that I think about
There's another side to this song as well - it starts clean, and it becomes more and more untamed as it continues. It starts as a slow rocking, and it ends in a violent shaking of the cradle until there is nothing left - not even the cradle itself.
Ether
This is another song that see-saws back down to the radio friendly side of the album's ever changing equation. Except for, probably the lyrics. And what happens beyond the second verse, when it gets more literal. It sounds like a song written from the perspective an American administration:
It's that time again
Can we get it right?
He wants us to revolt
To set the world on fire
We won't show restraint
Because we like the violence
We are security
Wrapped in our brutality
This is overall a rather "lovely" sounding song compared to the brutality of the rest of the album. This is the sort of rebellion-rock that you'd listen to at a festival, and think, "Yeah, I agree!" It is a little deeper than that, though, and brings in the sense of conspiracy and paranoia that pervades this album. The threads sewn here come back later in the album.
We came to take control / We came to sell you freedom / We came to burn you down / We came to brainwash children / And it's not our fault / It's just your own new suicide.
The title of the song, too - Ether, I take, as being completely and utterly numb to the violence of an entity, a state, an administration. Maybe I've got it wrong, but perhaps a clue is given in the title of the next song, to perhaps offer a new and different perspective.
I Wish I was a Communist
What a title, huh? This album has some very blunt song titles. This is a very violent track. Lots of screaming. Lots of aggression, and it is directed entirely at corporations. In fact, it could be written about an insurance company, given the historical context we have of Holt's house burning down in the lead up to the production of this album.
It seems like you've been industrialized
Colorblind or just sold out yeah!
I never thought it would be like this
A million screaming mouths
A million pounds of shit you motherfuckers
All you fuckers just waste our time
The lyrics aren't very poetic. But they're powerful. They certainly evoke the feelings I have when I contact a corporate Megalodon seeking a resolution to their failures, or the lacerated promises, made by them, to me.
The strike of catharsis in this song is right at the end, We'll always be the same / No Matter who you are. The guitars follow aggressive riffs all through the track, and unlike the undertoned, layered vocals at the end of this song that chant "I hate this", I object, because, I love this.
In Avernus
In case you don't know, Avernus is the entrance to the Underworld. We're talking about mythical, Greek underworld. The type with a puppy that has three heads, and a river, and all those other cool things. With that scene set - this is a song about death and dying, but it doesn't abandon the overarching themes of the album - about wanting to break away from institutional and government control - and to some extent, the control that we have in our very being(s) thanks to our human genetics.
Perhaps that is too broad of a stroke, but this song, delivered in a monotone falsetto, perhaps behind the haze of a substance, against persistent ever crashing cymbals and clean guitar that sounds like the lashing of whips against flesh, before it transforms to sound more like the machinations of a dying machine as Holt preaches to us:
If we could only see the past the shit
and learn the truth
maybe someone could adapt
and show us how to change things
Perhaps positive, but that's not the point of this album. It is complex and nuanced, for an album made by four men damaged by trauma and the seething undertones of frustration, rage, and disempowerment and loss. All this and more, just ooze from the delivery of this thing.
Patricide
Anger holds my hand / Keeps me in seclusion / A Prison / But I can't help it. I hate everyone. Even you.
Patricide is when a father is killed, by the child. This is a song where there is strain in the clean lyrical structure, and the constant and continued crashing of the symbols, throughout this whole album are absolutely fucking divine. They're punctuation marks across the whole album, and all the lyrics.
See Everything fall around me / I can't help anyone now / How many times do I have to die? / There's no blood left in my wrist
Suicide is another theme that certainly emerges from this album, the more it goes on. Reasons just slip away.
Find a way back inside my mind
Reasons just slip away
You can't hold back again
Will you find a reason why
I should not die
This is one of my favourite tracks on the album. The lyrical construction is fantastic, and there's so many bits I left out, so you can hopefully experience it for yourself. Give it time, and pay attention.
Here Come The Butchers
This is a song that pushes back against the church. At least, the ones that are responsible for reprehensible abuse of people in many nations of the world.
The devil lives in Rome
The devil cloaked in robes
Who do you control?
You can't control your own priests
The song goes on to detail the atrocities committed by religious figures, and in no uncertain terms, condemns them all. It is angry, full of gravel, aggression, and does not pull any punches in its brief three minute long inquisition.
I am Him
This was probably the first Nothingface song I ever heard. It has a spooky, sort of Haloween-y guitar riff in the background, nice and clean vocals, accessible instrumentation, and a song that builds logically.
But it is a song about surrendering to doubt and demons within - while continuing the attack upon religion, brainwashing and horror that began in the prior song:
Hide away inside the dark place in my mind
Fear of God and will He take me home to fire
And then, it extends the narrative to come back to be an obvious commentary of everything that the album was always suggesting gently (and violently) throughout its earlier tracks:
I am the fire at your funeral
I am the bloody Marxist General
I'm the lonely rapist priest
And the Autocratic President
I'm the judge and inquisitor
I am the corporate funded senator
I am the stink, the shit, the hate
I am American
I am the atom-splitting scientist
And the gun-toting lunatic
I am the flag that contradicts
I am the way...
I am American!
And twenty three years on from the release of Skeletons - very little has changed in the world. This is actually a rather good place to start out with Nothingface, even though it is the ninth track on the album. Four more to go!
Scission
This is another one of the more peaceful songs on the album. It is dreamy, relaxed, and relatively calm compared to everything - but it returns to familiar themes visited upon earlier:
If I could find a way
To release the day
I would serve the endless night
and burn out the light
Then we go off to go get Lost in the catacombs, a familiar place, at home. It feels like the place that Holt has been searching for the whole album. Peace. Quiet. In contrast to the great noise he and his band continue to make on each and every track.
Make no mistake, it is still a heavy-rock song, but it is radio friendly, benign even - were it not for the quiet desperation that permeates the vocals.
I need to stop right now
I cannot fake this anymore
I need control right now
And get my face off the floor
I've never been in this position before, but you might recall I story I wrote where I tried to recreate whatever the feeling of the above evokes, even if I did it subconsciously.
I cannot comprehend how many times I have listened to this album over the years, and it would be stupid to deny that it had no impact on my perceptions, my creativity, and some of my worldview.
This album, was after all, one of my most cherished shields that I was equipped with to defend against that adolescent, darling phantasm known as high school.
Big Fun At The Gallows
I would like you to consider the title of this track, then direct your gaze to the third stanza. Only, this isn't a poem. It is an angry rebellion against the artificiality found in modernity and well, corporate America, and with the rise of globalisation - the world.
I've got a little pent up rage
Set aside for a special moment
Do we all? Should we all?
Who says I need a motherfucking reason
All I need is cold precision
This isn't a quiet song. This isn't about revolution. It is a threat.
You will fall down one day.
And then it returns to an attack on capitalism, on not creating Art with the intent to express, but to just "Sell out:" If you're not about music / Why don't you sell some other shit?
Incarnadine
I never formally looked up the meaning of the word that titles this song. This is... because I know what it means just by listening to it. A red, crimson rage. Simple, understated. And this is one of my favourite songs of all time. I will probably say that a lot as I go down the long, long list of albums that I love, and that I hope, you too - might one day experience, but this one is one of those songs. Follow along with the lyrics.
This song takes the energy that ends the last song, and amplifies it. It is one of the rare tracks that starts fast, and then brings in a gentle contrast as it stews and matures. It has thrashing guitars, and well, has references to the title of the prior song.
This isn't a concept album - but it is all interlinked. It flows well together when played in order, and when listened to with an intent to try and understand the tragic circumstance(s) that influenced the formation of the wall of sounds that this album presents to us.
I insist that you listen to this song. It unpacks so much of the undocumented, unrevealed, hidden trauma that I do not confess to anyone. Except for now. I relate to this so deeply. To go into my personal history for a few moments. I am an only child with an overbearing mother. Incessantly, in my childhood. "Are you alright?" - and I go back to the song "Murder is Masturbation" and say it with me - "I'm not alright, but I'm ok".
Even now, as an adult man, I am assaulted with questions of this nature daily. When my phone vibrates, it isn't a welcome message from a friend. It is mostly my mother, wanting to know - and I now quote a fucking lot of lines from the song, because I know that most people won't get this far, or read this deeply, but for those that do:
I search inside myself
To find a place, sometimes safe
And if I find that place
I can finally rest and stop asking about
The know
The how
The where
The reasons competing
The way
The why
The you
The why
The reasons believing
And I know the faith
The God
The waste
The lying it's breathing
And I know the face
The man
The hate
The anger it's seething
This doesn't take long. It's from 1:47 in the song through to about 2:25. It is calm. It is controlled. It is balanced. There's a slip on "seething". A pause. A breath. Then it collects itself again before continuing. Holding it all in. Barely.
The parasite
Behind my eyes
Controls my mind
And feeds on time
So I'll hide inside
And wait until it's over
"Over" is when Holt transitions from clean to angry vocals, and it is a moment of catharsis in the soundscape that is completely an unmistaken moment of release to a tension and conflict that has been building since the first track of the album.
There's a subtext of self-harm, self-sabotage, perhaps even suicide in this track's other lyrics. I won't reproduce them in their entirety. You can listen. You can read.
On a personal note : I have not wanted to die for a very long time. Certainly, in my adolescent years, and my time in awful, horrible situations where I saw no pathway to happiness in my early 20s, I had that desire.
That desire is now gone - and I am the happiest I have ever been as I write this - if a little vulnerable to the statements and confessions that I have made in the preceding sentences. There is something persistent and powerful from this album, and I really do wish, truly, that it was the closing track on the album, because it goes on after this, for just one more song, a demented encore: but this is not yet the time for that, and this isn't even the ending of it, but oh; there is certainly a sense of it:
Clean Lyrics:
It's just fine
And we'll be alright
While we can find
Our way to the endless light, yeah!
Screamed Lyrics:
And tonight it all turns black again
So you can hide inside your fucking mind
And cry because you're still alive
This... stems from a want for peace. To be left to the quiet dark, and to solitude, to contemplation. To know that people care, but without them constantly and forever bombarding with enquiries as to my well being. I can ask for help when I need it, but for so much of my life, particularly in the context of the aforementioned personal relationship - I'll only get the help when I don't actually need it.
The song goes on, and every time I hear it, I feel a combination of bliss, chaos, protest, and somehow - order. This song makes me feel utterly and bitterly alone, in stark contrast to my above paragraph and thoughts regarding wanting that solitude. It makes me long for balance between extremes. To have meaningful connection, and not a parable of a someone who cried Woolf(sic).
It is a tangled mess of wires and thoughts, that only I alone can untangle with age, and maturity.
All Cut Up
And we come to the final track on the album. It opens with screams, threats, and that gravelly vitriol that permeates this album. Don't expect as much depth. This is the sort of song that would be fantastic to open a live show with. Think about the reason why you came / 'Cos we don't want you here.
It is an anthem to end one of my favourite albums, but... it concludes the album well.
I thought this was a good time
To tell you that I'm fine
*Sometimes I get a little angry
Right now, I'm high.
And it brings it back full circle, beyond the self-torture(s) of Holt's addictions, the suffering these four men went through through the album's runway, and the subsequent energy that constructs it.
We see it, we see it all
The fucking lies, we see it all
Are you satisfied?
Think about the reason why you came
Cause we don't want you here
Tell us again that I'm the fucking problem
With hope I'll disappear
Are you satisfied??
If you have come this far with me on this post, I thank you keenly and deeply. It is an uncomfortable thing to admit and to explore the depths of Incarnadine in a way that I never have before. I feel stronger for it, but I also feel weaker for admitting it.
The album Skeletons will always be one of the few that I hold dearest and closet to me. I just wish that it could touch more people in the same way in which it touched me.