This review was written originally on Rate Your Music a day ago. I guess you could say this review got me on here. If you want a coherent review, check out Nestor's, this is a tangent/rambling about how this album, but mostly one song make it the fucking best for me.
So yeah, this is probably the best album I've heard yet in my life. There is literally nothing I could add or subtract to this album. Their are literally moments of ecstasy littered throughout this, but none come close the to the entirety of Don, Aman, particularly it's lyrics. As someone who suffers from social anxiety disorder, it's impossible to not draw some sort comparisons between the lyrics and how it feels to have SAD.
Don stepped outside
It feels good to be alone
He wished he was drunk
He thought about something he said
And how stupid it had sounded
He should forget about it
These few lines hit me and when I actually found out about my condition. Finding out about my disorder after feeling close to this song before knowing about myself felt very strange, like living with someone for years and years, enjoying only casual conversations only to find out they are exactly the same as you, on a perchance random day and staying up the entire night talking, feeling stupid for not knowing this before.
It makes me wonder if a member of this band has social anxiety disorder, there is no way that's not possible. This is an album that has a feeling like no other, a feeling akin to my disorder, full of isolation and crippling fear. It always wants to achieve these grand feeling, but it's own fears get in it's way. The same for me, I want this to be the best review ever, because I love this album so, and want to give back to it, but feel like I never will be able to, I'll just regret it because it's not as popular or as known, so all this energy is for nothing. In fact, this review may be deleted before it someone cares, or has even seen it.
Then I come realize the feeling of this whole album is consumed by social anxiety. I certainly can't give up hope because it feels like an extension of myself, I want to be the only one to listen to it cause it feels so real to me. Curious and playful at first, but then after feeling uncomfortable and unsure, lashing out and escaping, welcoming isolation, feeling regret for things in and out of your control due to isolation, feeling numb and useless thanks to said regrets, and building these little "things" up until you need to let it out any fucking way, and then cycle repeats itself.
But I can't stop attributing it to Don. Trying to be normal at a social gathering but not feeling comfortable, he "steps outside" in what feels like a struggle to survive, feeling "good to be alone", and taking a "deep breath" making him "determined to go back inside" in a bout of self-confidence, but finding that people stare at him "with eyes like the heads of nails", making him feel even more uncomfortable and getting Don to leave again even more desperate, driving, howling, laughing, feeling he knew what it was. Then another day passes and Don wakes and knows what he must do, stares into a mirror and sees himself, "his friend". He is his own best friend, his own worst enemy. He has a moment of self-realization, I also have one my own too.
I am Don, I am my own friend, I am my own worst enemy. I am Spiderland, I am my own friend, I am my own worst enemy.
5/5
-Jackson
