Harsh and true reflections on life not going well, not well at all.
This latest release from Icarus Phoenix (Drew Danburry) is far from an easy listen. Sonically, yes the intonation does not often offend the ear, but the lyrics, the heart of the music is something that requires the listener to pay attention and think, and reflect. And maybe worry a little. It’s an album formed from changes – and in this case these are mostly of the hard kind as the songs were written by Danburry in 2021-2022 after divorcing his wife of 13 years and leaving his 8 year old son with her to move across the country amidst a housing crisis. Emotional and physical dislocations that inform the songs – and the mental health implications in particular are stark. The album opens with the noise distortion of ‘The Things You Never Told Me‘ which resolves into a statement about how things that were never said were nonetheless not completely unexpected, about how something can fall apart in front of you and you can be helpless to affect the outcome. It launches us into a passage through guilt and grief and acceptance, various shades of which are picked up on the ‘Live. Give. Lose. Grow.‘ on which Drew Danburry wrestles with the disbelief of another “I know you don’t believe me but I really do want the best for you” after the two way observation of “if we ignore our own behaviour it’s just ourselves that ends up hurt.” It’s an unresolvable “it’s a little bit me, it’s a little bit you, too.”
Not that all the songs are about a break-up, there’s further underlying pain to be explored – a lifetime’s worth. ‘Painting‘ describes a mother who turns to art after the death of her third son – as Danburry’s mother did. An unbearably sad topic – with an extra layer in that the reason for the art and the absence of a brother were never properly discussed, leaving just an emotional disconnect. As the song plays out, on a sound sculpture reminiscent of laboured breathing and the electronic hum of medical machinery, that absence and that loss is given a stark underlining. A mother’s pain, a brother’s pain, a lack of explanation and an inability to breach this emotional chasm. It’s the kind of thing likely to touch, and shape, a spirit.
With all this accumulation of personal tragedies it’s perhaps no surprise that the conversational ‘Doctor! Doctor!‘ sounds like someone considering suicide having a conversation with a medical professional. “The Doctor told me I have value I have worth I have a place here on this earth every day / I told her I would agree with maybe one in three.” There’s a genuine sense of self-proclaiming worthlessness in the face of self-identified failure in “I told her I don’t agree / the world is callous it is cold and I do not fit the mould of an ideal man.” It sounds as world weary as the lyrics suggest, and there’s a sense of desperation too in the back and forth of reasons to live and have self-worth compared to reasons to not bother.
There is a sense of a coming to terms as the album closes out on ‘The Sword and the Harp‘ and even more so the slow and meditative ‘Kanashimi‘, featuring Lake Mary, which equates sadness to a way to process “present pain” and finds a solace in repetitive daily activities as a way to acceptance. Cheery it is not, but it’s the closest thing to hopeful and maybe that’s enough.
It should be clear by now that these are not easy songs – and one has to wonder at the effort they must have required to produce. Real things are not easy, even love is hardly ever like a love song is it? And we’re stirring over all the difficulties of life here – loss of one kind or another, emotional barriers, death and the difficulty of maintaining mental health in the face of all of this. It might be too stark a listen if one is currently in the depths of these things, but if some of the wrestling with life’s turmoil has been passed through then ‘I Should Have Known The Things You Never Said‘ is a statement of some of the shared experience of the human condition. It is a fucking brave album, and it is that thing we sometimes more glibly say – not easy to forget having been heard. Listen to it, or at the least get hold of it and save it for when you’re ready for it.
