Whenever, If Ever

By the time you've finished reading the name "The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die," you've likely made two assumptions about this band and both are warranted-- yes, they identify as "emo" and yes, they have little to no use for restraint and understatement. Though on a much, much smaller scale, TWIABP resemble Arcade Fire prior to Funeral, having made their name on a promising EP and unpredictable, cathartic live performances that feature nearly a dozen people making music at the same time. But the greater similarity lies in Whenever, If Ever being a rare debut that’s powered by an almost frightening will to live, a desperation that strongly suggests the people involved have no other option to deal with what's inside of them-- when Thomas Diaz screams “let's hope that this works out/ this has got to work out!" during the frantic conclusion of “Fightboat”, you realize “this” means everything.

TWIABP have already become a bit of a cause célèbre as emo reemerges as a viable, visible genre of independent rock rather than just a pejorative adjective. Understandable, even if there wasn’t anything like them the first time around-- for one thing, they’re from Connecticut and roll about 10 deep, switching vocalists on the fly and utilizing strings and horns to create textures that are more based in post-rock or mid-00s indie rock. And at the risk of revisionist history, I’m just going to put this out there: Cap’n Jazz, Jazz June, and all that other jazz was never this melodic, never this instrumentally tight, and never this well-produced. But if that sound meant everything to you at some point or if you’ve been waiting for a comeback for the sole purpose of airing out old grievances, Whenever, If Ever suits your needs.

They have a weakness for the emo trope of singing being the truest form of self-expression, an act even purer if you don’t have any kind of studied vocal capability-- "we sang songs/ but we never learned your words or melodies", "and when our voices fail us/ we will find new ways to sing," things like that. And on first proper track “Heartbeat in the Brain”, TWIABP sounds like the kind of band where you get the lead vocals simply by wanting it more-- there’s the adenoidal guy, the screaming guy, someone named "Shitty Greg" who might not be either of them, and they sometimes sing in tandem, initially exaggerating their hiccuping modulations to a degree that feels like trolling; you’ll know pretty quickly if you’re built for this stuff if “Kinsella” is your safe word. There are the musical cues as well-- searching arpeggios over palm-muted clean chords, spastic drum fills, nasal Casio synth leads. Hell, “Fightboat” might even cause squabbling amongst the old heads as its introductory horn line recalls the one from American Football’s “The Summer Ends”, which some people still complain about to this day.

It takes a little while for Whenever, If Ever to get going, but once it does, TWIABP establish they are not an emo revival act, but more of a spiritual descendent of Danielson Famile or an early 00s Saddle Creek band, a community whose albums serve as a time capsule, a documentation of their lives. It’s unclear exactly when that click happens, but it’s definitely during “Picture of a Tree That Doesn't Look Okay”. Perhaps it’s the part where Greg Horbal asks over desiccated, detuned guitars, “Do you think the landlord’s pissed?/ We left a car parked on the lawn again”-- it’s an inside joke that doubles as a conspiratorial invitation, indicating that you’re welcome to join in and, hell, maybe you were there the whole time (the car ends up on the lawn again by the very next song). Or it could be the point where Whenever, If Ever starts to incorporate clever segues to establish a chronology and continuity to the story-- a delayed guitar resembles a bong rip as “Picture” drifts into “You Will Never Go to Space” and the final line of that song ("Did we dream when we were skeletons/ or did we just wish for our skin?") becomes foreshadowing for “The Layers of Skin We Drag Around”. Or, maybe it’s after the pace picks up and TWIABP shake off the slowcore rust, a drum roll crescendo leading into a rousing call and response coda where the hooks work out their kinks and become singalongs.

Either way, once “Picture” passes, TWIABP already have accrued the confidence and wisdom to do things they seemed incapable of only minutes prior. “Ultimate Steve” distills the band’s post-rock and emo extremes into concentrate, an all-together-now, 30-second shoutalong bookended by a gorgeous build and fade. During the revolutionary final third, the stakes and consequences of this life pursuit start to push back on TWIABP. “Gig Life” bears the record’s most instantly memorable melody and lyrics, an acoustic power ballad that would’ve been intolerable if performed with the same abandon from earlier. Diaz sings, “You ran away/ You were afraid to make mistakes/ but that's the biggest one you made." It’s unclear to whom it’s pointed (a former bandmate? A high school friend? An ex?) or where "somewhere to the west, I suppose" even entails, it could be New York City or the next town over for all we know. But “Gig Life” establishes that TWIABP understand the sacrifices and the rewards of their chosen gig life and are saddened at losing this person, that it might be a personal failure on their behalf. Still, being stuck in West Virginia with the same old Rival Schools albums and food from the nearest Sheetz are their occupational hazards; those of your “gig” might entail water cooler talk and the occasional bagel, but it's still a gig. Are you satisfied?

“Low Light Assembly” follows as a solemn, final hymn ("the parking lot where we lay is more than home now") before the stunning closer “Getting Sodas." A brooding, minor key bassline gives you pause to realize just how far TWIABP have come in barely a half hour-- they’ve established a community, this one’s for an audience. And it’s big room stuff: the guitars peal and ring rather than hang and drone, the low end is heavier and reverbed, the screaming sounds aimed rather than scattershot. And it closes on a chorale that the band created itself to express: "The world is a beautiful place/ but we have to make it that way... and if you're afraid to die/ Then so am I."

Yeah, it sounds like Arcade Fire and it sounds like Bright Eyes too, but the intent of those words is more crucial. It reminds me of Win Butler promising to build tunnels as the world collapses around him and his lover, Conor Oberst demanding the tape roll so that he and his friends can document their love for each other. It’s a spirit available to everyone and possessed by no one, yet so few bands choose to pursue it even as those that do tend to be rewarded-- it’s a realization that you can be ambitious and striving with kindness, pushing against a palpable resistance without turning existence into an "us vs. them" zero sum game. Whenever, If Ever fights against fears, societal expectations, preconceptions, and the metaphysical for the greater good of society, and I mean, for crying out loud, the cover just says jump right in and do it. And sure, TWIABP make mistakes on Whenever, If Ever because they’re scared of not doing so, but it’s flawed in a way that can make a listener feel like it’s theirs, something that might inspire them to make a more perfect version of it. Whenever, If Ever probably won't ever be Funeral or Lifted or Ships or Diary on a mass level, but you know TWIABP feel like it’s their best shot at it and don’t care whether a dozen or several thousand people end up feeling the same.