the art of destruction

My grandfather is an avid classical music fan with a particular taste, he won't listen to just anything. When I was in college I took a music history class that required listening to and learning about a lot of music I wasn't familiar with. During that time, I enjoyed discussing the things I was listening to with Grandpa. We compared notes on Liszt, Debussy and Berlioz. It was a connection on a short list of common interests (others have included sports, Seinfeld, Cheers and 2001: A Space Odyssey). A couple years ago I had another memorable moment of connection with him. I don't recall how it came up, but we started talking about music again. He became very interested in the concept of instrumental rock music. Apparently he had heard some of it while scanning the radio. I just happened to have my ipod with me so, we sat there and listened to snippets of Battles, Explosions in the Sky and This Will Destroy You. In his head, there was a distinct similarity in the arrangement of symphonies and that of our modern day post-rock music. He was right, I think, and it changed the way I listened to the music.

Today, I was remembering this moment with my grandfather while I listened to This Will Destroy You's self-titled album from 2007. I've been in love with the opening track "A Three-Legged Workhorse" since the first time I heard it. The spacing is perfect, as is the timing. It creeps to a start, creating an atmosphere of labor with silence and fuzz and then it slowly starts to build, plodding along with guitars and digital drums. About three minutes in, the song finally feels open, the live drums are added, the fuzz in the background starts to become louder. The horse is picking up it's pace, he thinks he has a shot at winning this thing. And I start to feel that This Will Destroy has no intention of brutalizing you. No, the destruction they employ is more emotional. It's the kind that seeps in your mind and heart and then manifests itself to the point where you can no longer ignore it. It overtakes you until suddenly, what you thought was a solid place is now moving, shifting and you see that you must move with it, or be destroyed. Dramatic, huh?

When I listen to this album I start to see my life in slow motion. There's that sunset in Romania, the one I watched from the ruins of an ancient castle in '97, looking out over the city of Suceava. It's right there inside of track 2, "Villa del Refugio" with it's swells and ambient buzzing. I listen to "Threads" and suddenly my drive to work is a scene from a movie, like one of those unnecessary slow moving shots Jerry Bruckheimer loves. See the exhaustion in my face as I make a slow left onto the highway. In the "The Mighty Rio Grande" I am marching up the side of the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica in '05 or climbing all those stairs in Gothenburg to the old Swedish lookout in the center of town in '07. Each step with purpose, heavy with anticipation. It is, in fact, grand. It's breathtaking.

All of this, all the emotion and remembering that is inside this music is communicated without words. The words are in the spaces and in the silences between the notes and the chords. I am moving through it. I am moving with it. I am a wind storm passing through the memories of my life, destroying the dark places, bringing the new and the familiar together, to the surface, like a newspaper blown against your windshield. I am slain. I am re-born. I am, perhaps, a bit over the top. But I love it.