The long, melodramatic band name. The expansive and oft-shifting lineup. The grandiose, post-rock-infused approach to emo. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die have always been about going big.
Their latest album is titled Illusory Walls and it finds the Philly-based unit reduced to five members: David Bello on lead vocals and guitar, Katie Dvorak on lead vocals and synth, Steven Buttery on drums and percussion, Josh Cyr (the band’s sole remaining founding member) on bass and backing vocals, and production maestro Chris Teti on “guitar, vocals, bass, and programming.” Structurally, they are as close to a “normal band” as they’ve ever been. But returning past their scene’s expiration date with a scaled-down lineup has not in any way hemmed in this band’s ambitions. If anything, this is TWIABP’s heaviest, proggiest, most audacious release to date.
TWIABP could have returned with just the final two tracks, called them an album, and no one would have flinched or complained. These are two incredible pieces of music, sprawling in scope yet densely packed with sound and self-referential Easter eggs, each one a journey unto itself. Both of them instantly rank among this band’s finest achievements. The first of the two is the track I am going with. Infinite Josh is a title that calls back to the band’s 2011 EP Josh Is Dead and music that keeps stacking upon itself, building ever skyward in prismatic echoes and choreographed lightning. “Our dreams get drowned in a river of present needs,” Bello repeats in one of the album’s most affecting metaphors. “The years float by like fallen leaves.” Bello’s poetic imagery moves along the horizontal axis, yet the music behind him keeps moving vertically, intensifying as it goes. It’s like watching all creation spiral upward into oblivion.
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