This is beautiful music disguised by alluringly antagonistic methods, or in the case of the surprisingly infectious, Joy Division-like “Defenestration Song,” hit singles ensconced in a gauntlet of distortion.
The opening shoegaze drone of “Guggenheim Wax Museum” is noisy and crushing in its wall-of-noise assault, but the melody itself has a graceful, mournful slowcore feel. This is all relative, of course-like Kevin Shields or Michael Gira on a DIY scale, everything that Have a Nice Life does has a sense of being absolutely massive, yet contained within a certain, highly specific sonic terrain. And when they arrive upon just the right juxtaposition of chords, the stillness and sustain aren’t just warranted, they feel absolutely vital.Īnd yet, The Unnatural World feels more focused and concise than its predecessor. And that’s largely because, on a song-by-song basis, Barrett and Macuga aim for bigger sounds that stretch and unfold over five to eight minutes apiece, moving in slight shifts rather than big dramatic sweeps. The band’s long-awaited second album, The Unnatural World, is a good 40 minutes shorter than its predecessor, but no less dense, emotional, or for that matter, epic. But even a cursory listen to Deathconsciousness reveals the strength of their songwriting, which often parallels the haunting dirges of Joy Division, the punishing drones of Swans, or the hypnotic haze of a darker My Bloody Valentine. There’s an unpolished, raw nature about Have a Nice Life that’s a little strange, even troubling at first. And those ultimately ended up selling out as well, and it’s easy to understand why.
It took some time, but eventually demand outpaced Deathconsciousness’ supply, and an increasingly growing base of fans for this obscure, elusive duo led to proper CD and vinyl pressings via Barrett’s Enemies List label. Barrett and Macuga didn’t expect the album to move like hotcakes, yet the sheer volume of powerful, gut-wrenching industrial and post-punk sounds, not to mention attention to detail in its packaging, revealed a band that really did seem to give a shit, even if they didn’t expect anyone else to. But after five years and presumably a lot of hard work, the group recorded a dense, sprawling two-disc debut album titled Deathconsciousness, limited to 100 CD-R copies, each of which also each included a 100-page booklet.
HAVE A NICE LIFE ALBUMS SERIES
The project of then-unknown Massachusetts musicians and songwriters Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, Have a Nice Life took shape when the duo began performing in coffeehouses and open mics, and subsequently released a series of demos that weren’t circulated widely outside their own ZIP code. The Flenser was recently featured in our monthly metal column as one of Five Labels Keeping Metal Interesting in 2019.The launch of Have a Nice Life’s ascent toward becoming a revered cult band is a case study in contradictions. Have A Nice Life’s previous album was 2014’s The Unnatural World. Update: The band have shared the tracklist and title track from the album. Pre-orders will go live here on Tuesday, August 27.
The band recently performed some new material this month at Psycho Las Vegas, though this will be their first set of new songs in five years. The band have also shared a teaser from the new album featuring clips of new music, which you can hear below. And now, it’s official: Have A Nice Life’s Sea of Worry will be released on November 8 via The Flenser. Have A Nice Life, the dark, eclectic post-punk/shoegaze duo from Connecticut, earlier this year announced they’d be releasing a new album.
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