Midnight Masses

Pains In The Act Of Death

Jul 25, 2009

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Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Sound engineering by Mike Gentry

We are hurting. So we make it go away by feeling everything in that pain, by letting it consume us in ways that we've never let anything ever consume us. We are welcoming a full invasion of these awful and ruthless emotions - the ones that always dress themselves in the devil's black, with rotten-ed out eyes and breaths that make paint peel from the gloomiest walls. We want the pain to pour itself on, breaking us down into the pulp that we are so that when all of the rattling and tumult is finished, we'll be able to open our eyes again, wipe them clean of the dirt and the water, start to hear again something other than a terror-like roar of "healing" or "improvement" and we'll see that most everything is still as it was when the onslaught began however long ago it was. This process is not really for everyone, as it seems to take you to the depths of a body where all of the horrors are amplified after they've been introduced to you, but then again, nothing's universal and when someone is broken, they'll try anything to not be broken anymore, even if the side effects are scary. Here we are stood, face to face with our darkest thoughts, our regrets and all of the lingering sadness - the words that will forever be trapped and unsaid. Midnight Masses, a Brooklyn band that is essentially the writings and work that resulted from Autry Rene Fulbright's loss of his father, makes death somehow hurt more, even from afar, even when it's the death of someone we've never known. Fulbright wrote these songs with the help of Jason Reece, guitarist for …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, but they are lyrically rooted in this most unsympathetic and unexpected death. Fulbright plumbs the very bottoms of what all of his clustered and bleary, odd and disjointed pangs of confusion and remorse are telling him, impressing upon him. He explores the lengths of these very dark voices and struggling venoms, intermixing the thoughts that are homegrown and of himself with the teachings of ancient religions, stories and myths and newer religions, letting it all bleed into one gloriously ambitious and rambling splotch. He's taken everything that's turning, everything that's weighing on him, everything that's no longer weighing on him, all of the everything, all of the nothing and emptiness and just thrown it against the wall in the middle of a room that's been shuttered off from all sunlight and seen what kinds of movements it makes with the shadowy whispers. Fulbright, who played for a time in Dragons of Zynth, finds such brutally heartbreaking and ingenious ways of confronting his pains associated with the death of his father and putting them into a context that feels right for him, even in all its discomfort. He doesn't shy away from pulling back the covers, opening his eyes and sinking himself into the unpleasant realities of losing someone and finding out what that makes you afterwards because you've stopped being the same person in relation to what you were. And you didn't have the choice. The music is brooding and open, daring and depressing and inside of it there's no escaping.

Midnight Masses MySpace Page

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1. first song

   Welcome to Daytrotter

   
2. second song

   Burial Song

   

   - original version appears on the forthcoming Good Sons Die YoungThis was written with burial as a specific part of my continuous theme of death and rebirth in Midnight Masses songs, especially since most of the material that preceded this was written specifically in response to my father's then recent passing. The idea of burial with so-called degenerates or social/spiritual outcasts was a celebratory, unifying thing to me, given my rejection of the mainstream ideals of my youth. The "...my father the killer, my father the king" part was both a nod to the reverence I felt for my dad (referencing the Mogwai song "My Father My King" which itself was lifted from the Avinu Malkeinu, a prayer from the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.) Calling my own dead father a killer was a way to convey what a devastating impact he had on my family's life -- that in a sense those he left behind had lost part of their former lives with him.

3. third song

   I Was A Desperate Man

   

   - original version appears on the forthcoming EP, Rapture Ready, I Gazed At The BodyThe idea of this song was to evoke the idea of a spirit reflecting on its life after committing suicide. In a way the spirit is me, again expressing my grief over my father's death, on the other hand I specified how the person died "...loaded shotgun in my hand" - referring to one of the more iconic musical figures of modern music -- Kurt Cobain. The idea of the act of death -- a suicide, side-by-side with the aftermath of death -- a burial, reinforces my theme of mortality and rebirth. As a bit of a curveball, the choir part at the end ("hear the angels calling...watch the demons falling!") revolves around a biblical prophecy of Satan and his hordes being cast out of heaven to the earth, coinciding with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and the start of the "pangs of distress" for mankind i.e. the onset of World War I.This is departure from my usual narrative. I just wanted something pretty for everyone to sing.

4. fourth song

   Walk On Water

   

   - original version appears on the forthcoming EP, Rapture Ready, I Gazed At The BodyA song dedicated to my mother. It's a wedding gift to her in a way, affirming my support of her moving on with her life and finding love again. I'm sure it was difficult to lose my dad/her husband, her companion of thirty years, and to face the idea of living alone. This was a call to action to remain strong and move forward in life and love i.e. " there's nothing wrong with moving on ".

5. fifth song

   Debtor's Song

   

   - original version appears on the forthcoming Good Sons Die YoungThese were actually the first lyrics I wrote at Jason Reece's house, and he actually felt that the lyrics were a little abrasive (this is coming from a guy who's other band is called "...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead") but after some thought I liked still the imagery of Death behind the wheel of a large automobile, with the devil in the front messing with the stereo or something and god helpless and drunk in the backseat. I wanted it to take the listener to this eerie, apocalyptic wasteland with these iconic figures speeding down the highway in a hellish town. The idea of paying one's debts with a "noose around your neck" refers to the biblical saying that the "wages sin pays is death". Still at the end, all those party to the hellride "open death's door but did not go in" so they live to "sin" another day.