#posthomous

[sunthroughdarkclouds]

Necrogamy was the practice of marrying a dead person, also called posthumous marriage or ghost marriage. This was legally recognized in France in 1804 to allow marriage to fallen soldiers, but was practiced extralegally elsewhere in Europe.

[ilhoonftw]

i remember being like 16 and reading a literary magazine with a large photo editorial about author that recently passed away. and they shown photographs of their studio, there was a shot of trashcan accompained with something that went along the lines of 'when they died one of the first things their assistant did was go through trash to look for any unfinished pieces of poetry whatnot as posthomous collection of texts is already in the works'

[rainydayscore]

had a dream i was taking my dog for a walk, as part of it i went into a bookstore and found a book called Lolita Gothic about this egl girl who was getting raped, the book started with her posthomously accusing her rapist somehow. the prose in it was super nice and it was this small book so bought it and was very disappointed when i woke up and didnt have it

[emmashouldbewriting]

Possibly morbid question to ask but if an author who has a big selling series story passes before it's finished would the publishing company drop it or can they have someone finish it off?

And in case anyone wonders why I'm asking it's because even if George R R Martin lives for another 20 years I'm doubtful that we'll ever get the last two books for a song of fire and ice but as someone with OCD I would really like to finish the story before I die.

Of course if he finishes Words of Winter and A Dream of Spring I'd rather read it knowing he fully wrote it but if he's not inspired to finish it then I'd take anything to get the book series finished 😂

ummmm lol

it would likely depend on the circumstances? it's not uncommon for a written book to be published posthomously - or if one is largely written and there's a lot of plotting, it can be finished off by a friend/family member in collaboration with the editing team. I doubt an entire series would be finished. part of what makes us unique as writers is our voice, and replicating that is so hard. there's also the point that copyright passes to next of kin and they would then have to okay it.

one of my friends passed a couple of years ago unexpectedly and she had a finished book she hadn't published, and the community fundraised so her husband could publish it in her memory.

in the case of GRRM something would probably be finished, he likely has extensive notes detailing his plans even if the book itself isn't written, but there's also the "bonus" of there being a material to pull a conclusion from in the TV show. i'm pretty sure he's said that's not his ending, which means he knows how it all ends.

[whywalkwhenyoucanride]

could we not normalize necromancy :/

[mihrunnisasultans]

ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴏ ɪ ᴀᴍ... ʙᴜᴛ ᴅᴏᴇꜱ ʜᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ɪꜱ ᴍʏ ꜱᴜɴ? ᴍᴀʏ ʜᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴋɴᴏᴡ!

İbrahim Pasha had been born a Venetian subject at Parga, on the Ionian coast opposite Corfu, and after his capture by the Ottomans had served in Süleyman’s household in Manisa when he was prince-governor of Saruhan. Almost as soon as he became sultan, Süleyman publicly demonstrated the favour in which he held İbrahim by building him a magnificent palace on the Hippodrome in Istanbul. Having inherited his first grand vezir, Piri Mehmed Pasha, from his father, Süleyman appointed İbrahim to succeed him. Such promotion of someone who was not a vezir but a senior officer of the Sultan’s household was extraordinary. - Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire

Among all viziers and servants of Süleyman, no one ever enjoyed the sultan’s favour as much Ibrahim. From the moment that he mounted the throne, Süleyman presented Ibrahim in public as his beloved friend, with whom he wanted to share all that he had, including his royal prerogatives. Described by the Venetians as the sultan’s “breath and heart”, Ibrahim was showered with myriad favours, including the most beautiful palaces horses, jewels, robes, slaves, and camels, which in splendour and magnificence matched only the sultan’s own. (...) No official from the imperial council, not even the grand vizier was allowed to enter the sultan’s private quarters. The council members were rather received by the sultan in the Chamber of Petitions (...) Ibrahim, however, continued to have immediate access to the sultan in the inner court, even after his elevation to grand vizierate. The Venetian bailo Pietro Bragadino noted in 1526 that Süleyman and Ibrahim would sleep in the same bed, their heads touching. - Ebru Turan, The Marriage of Ibrahim Pasha

Ibrahim was, according to the English writer Knolles, the most magnificent and powerful of all Ottoman grand viziers: "He in magnificence, power and authoritie farre exceeded all the rest of the Bassas." A royal document issued in 1526 granted him almost complete power as the sultan's alter-ego. Born in Parga, on Venetian territory, Ibrahim was a strong supporter of the Serenissima's Levantine trade. The bailo Pietro Bragadino reports that this pro-Venetian grand vizier was not only fond of reading the lives of classical heroes like Hannibal and Alexander the Great, but that he also avidly gathered intelligence about contemporary monarchs. Wearing many jeweled rings and dressed more lavishly than the sultan, he "bought almost every fancy object he could acquire." In 1530-31 he had insistently requested a unicorn horn from the Venetian Senate, a treasure that was presented ceremonially to the sultan as a token of the Serenissima's friendship with the Sublime Porte.- Gülru Necipoğlu, Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry

Happy (very belated) birthday @latristereina!

[estefikrol]

Lil Peep, a posthumous perspective.

What would the late young rapper think of the new material that's being released under his name today? Almost two years after his tragically overdosed death at the age of 21, on his first tour ever, Peep’s morbid masterpiece sound and predictive heartbreaking lyrics are still on.

Since the sad event occurred in November 2017, for some unexpected yet for others completely obvious considering his dreadful addiction and fast way of living, not only we received a whole 11 track album entitled Come Over When You’re Sober Pt2 in 2018 - the sequel of his debut COWYS Pt1- but also a complete merch saga, waterfalls of Social Media posts, and a Youtube playlist loaded with weird enough music videos. In case you think that is a lot to take in for such a short period of time, wait to see the brand new full-length alluring documentary about the life of the generational icon: Everybody’s Everything, which was screened for the first time at the acclaimed artsy festival SXSW in Texas last March.

Nowadays, the infamous '27 club' is far away from what's bringing the horizon for this new hurricanly hasten artists passing away at the very beginning of their careers. They have everything in the palm of their hands, just one click away from making a pile of mockups and leaving hundreds of unfinished tracks. That's what happened Lil Peep, he had material to release a whole new album, a couple of intriguing collaborated singles and for sure, there's a lot more on the way. His unreleased music is now owned by Columbia Records and in some cases, the matter brought a little controversy to the table.

The first posthumous song we heard from his storage was Falling Down, the catchy featuring with the singer XXXTENTACION, whom a gunshot got him dead less than a year after Peep´s overdose. Initially, the song was in the works with his longtime producer ILoveMakonnen, although as an intent of reviving two legends, or just a way of satisfying a bunch of millennials fans, the single was finally out with XXX´s vocals on it. “X had heard the snippet on YouTube and he wanted to be a part of it and he recorded some parts to it. [X] ended up passing away, and his mom and his family were reaching out to Peep’s management and everybody saying the song was something that [X] was very passionate about before he passed and he would really like to be a part of this and [asked] if we could make this happen.”, Makonnen explained in an interview with XXL. That's why this might have come from two broken hearts, both of them mothers teamed up to make this collab happen. Lil Tracy, a close partner who worked in a few tracks with Gus, even though rumors have it that he had a feud out of jealousy with him, tweeted: “Never even friends, didn’t even like each other”. So, the main problem here was that Peep's side claimed that he would never have worked with someone accused of hitting a woman and for list of other violent attitudes.

Wait wait, and do you think XXX would be happy with Maluma singing on his tune? In most of his interviews, he declared not being a huge fan of the mainstream singers taking today's scene. If he would have been alive, maybe, Arms Around You would have never come to the realization… just a personal thought.

Moving on, COWYS PT2 was released under a press event ran by Columbia Records. "Fuck 'em though, I did this all by myself. Matter fact, I ain't ever asked no one for help", he wrote in Star Shopping. When he was alive he did pretty much everything by himself and now he has an army behind, which made some fans angry and made them react against the new material. ´This is not Lil Peep´ ´The album may have turned out completely different if he was alive´, some of his most compromised followers argued. Other than, during that evening, his mother invokes Peep´s spirit by assuring that this LP was what his beloved Gus would have wanted to be.

Thereafter, at the beginning of 2019, then I've Been Waiting song came out by the hand of ILoveMakonnen and Fall Out Boy. The song is for the likes of everyone, by all means, it is one of the most mainstream sounds he ever had. The emo rocky vibes are not the stars here and even the lyrics are not as deep and sensitive as the ones from his first album. And the vid… okay here is a kind of ironic twist that puts an end on Peep's traditional darkish way of telling a story. I´ve Been Waiting looks like taken from a magical ethereal naive book, this is the explanation you can read on Youtube: “Peep wanted this video to bring people up into the clouds, into the fantastical world of his mind. Making it now, alongside Makonnen, is our way of visiting him again.” - SUS BOY.

Sadly this is a no end discussion, moreover, when he was about to leave GothBoiClique (emo rap collective) behind for career and health reasons. No one could really know what the musical prodigy genuinely felt or thought at that time.

[flightfoot]

I don't think either Nathalie or Emilie were fridged. Emilie is a posthomous character whose presence and actions helped to set up the story, she wasn't killed off to help advance other character's stories, her death WAS the foundation of the story. She's more The Lost Lenore.

Nathalie wasn't fridged. She wasn't killed off or brutalized just to serve as a rage button for someone, her choices and feelings were central to everything that happened with her, and in fact became even MORE important throughout season 5, with how she was maneuvering around Gabriel, not totally allying with him or totally going against him, and trying to persuade him to make different choices than she did. And heck, even when she was on her deathbed in the final episode, she bloody tried to kill Gabriel with a crossbow! Heck, I'd use her as an example of a female character who starts out mostly as a satellite for someone else, but who's complex motivations and changing views of the situation cause them to affect the narratives in interesting ways, to claim a lot of agency for themselves, even though she was very sick by the end.

I sent you a message about the supposed "cheating" in the NY Special, but yeah, I don't agree that it was cheating, both Adrien and Marinette were both in relationships at the time, and Adrien salters were calling for Adrien's blood during that period, so it definitely got talked about.

People complained about Marinette's crush on Chat kind of going away after Emotion, it just didn't get ragged on for long. I think that part of the story was just meant to show that Marinette DID fall in love with both sides of Adrien, because otherwise Adrien falling for both sides of Marinette while Marinette only continues to view Adrien romantically could be viewed as shallow.

I liked Zoe in season 5, and people have complained about her not bringing enough to the narrative. Personally though, I think she came into her own this season, especially in Kwami's Choice and Adoration. Having her actually admit crush to Marinette was very refreshing!

As for the increasingly bizarre events of the show... to be fair, the writing has been on the wall for that since season 2, when Max invented a sentient robot in his spare time and the brilliant plan to deal with Paris's garbage was "launch it into space".

There does seem to be a trend in the specific sect of this fandom that I circulate where people are only openly against writing decisions that impede Adrien's role in the story. Nothing was ever discussed on my dash about the following:

Lila's bizarre transition from a normal mean teenage girl (a strong narrative antagonist for Marinette's civilian conflict) to a weird Machiavellian criminal

Nathalie's (and Emilie's of course, but I'm saltier about it with Nathalie) role in the story being a prime example of a Fridged Woman

The way Marinette's long-coming crush on Cat Noir was tossed aside after two episodes

Zoe still not bringing anything to the narrative

The weird undiscussed presence of cheating in relationships in this whole show (Adrien apparently cheating on Kagami with Marinette in the NYC special, Audrey Bourgeois blatantly having cheated on her husband)

The increasingly bizarre events in this show that, to me, clearly just exist to make people go :O, not unlike how shows like Riverdale became increasingly bizarre over the course of their run in order to get viewers because they knew they couldn't grab viewers with their mediocre premise alone (Chloe becoming mayor, Felix and Kagami's weird little play, etc)

There's a lot more I wanted to add here, but figured were more my opinion than an actual Thing to be discussed.

Never saw any of this discussed in my circle of Tumblr, but I HAVE seen an absolute ton of discussion surrounding Adrien's screen time, Adrien's family dynamics, Adrien's role as a hero, Adrien's internal struggles, and how the writers apparently don't explore any of those things to their full potential.

And it makes me wonder why people are so fixated on him. Because I'm sorry to say this, but I've personally always seen him as a pretty unremarkable character. Don't misconstrue my words and say I said I don't like him, because I do like him. But I hardly consider him the most interesting character in the show.

My theory? He's just an easy character to fixate on, for the following reasons:

None of his struggles come from his financial, racial/cultural, or other kind of protected background, meaning discussions on his struggles don't have to be "difficult."

The fact that his primary antagonist is his father (as his father, and not as Hawk Moth) means fans can easily take the "I want to adopt him and give him a good home" route of character analysis

He's perpetually positive, meaning it doesn't require a lot of mental energy to like him-- he can just be a lovable "sunshine boy" to people.

On the rare occasion he IS upset, fans become obsessed, because who doesn't love more emotional depth?

When he's positive/nonplussed about something that he morally should be upset at, fans can easily explain it away as a result of his upbringing.

He's cute. There's no way to talk around this. He's got big green eyes and baby cheeks and flippy blond hair and a soft voice and cute habits like scratching his neck when he's nervous. The first three things are traits character designers often employ to get audiences to like their characters. The last two things are examples of things you can do to get people to subconsciously like you irl. This part is just psychology, and it makes me wonder if people would be affected by all the above points if he didn't look the way he does.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to like Adrien for any of the above reasons. I just want some people to think about their opinions of this show and ask themselves whether they feel as strongly about other writing decisions as they do about the ones that "hurt" Adrien, and, if they don't, why they feel so drawn to Adrien in the first place. Because it's definitely not because the show does him dirtier than everyone else.

[alphynix]

Spectember Interlude: Mr. Dixon's Wild Ride

The rhinogrades were the start of larger-scale speculative evolution works, but what truly popularized the genre to the general public are undoubtedly the works of Scottish geologist Dougal Dixon.

His 1981 book After Man was a "zoology of the future" using over a hundred speculative species to demonstrate the principles of evolution. Set 50 million years from now in the world of the Posthomic period, humans are long gone and the hardy survivors of a prior mass extinction have diversified and convergently evolved to fill vacant ecological niches, including rabbits becoming ungulate-like animals, penguins becoming giant whale-like creatures, and rats taking on the role of canid-like predators.

Some of the more outlandish creations have become infamous over the years and may seem cliché by modern standards – like the giant flightless predator bats – but when it was first published it was revolutionary, and there's still a certain charm to it all even if the artwork isn't quite as good as it could have been. Despite Dixon himself being a talented artist, the publisher chose to have all the final images created by other illustrators based on the original concepts. (And the updated 2018 edition goes as far as replacing a couple of images that the author was especially unhappy with.)

The success of After Man led to two "sequels" a few years later. In 1988 The New Dinosaurs took the premise of the K-Pg mass extinction never happening and used "an alternative evolution" to explain the geographical distribution of species. Inspired by the dinosaur renaissance, some of its fictional creations arguably predicted later paleontological discoveries – many species are depicted as extensively fuzzy (including ornithischians!) and aren't too terribly shrinkwrapped for the time, and there are then-unknown concepts like small arboreal climbing theropods, giraffe-like ground pterosaurs, and semi-aquatic beaver-like mammals coexisting alongside the dinosaurs.

But at the same time much of it just hasn't aged very well, with a lot of the paleontological basis of the The New Dinosaurs having become horrendously outdated over the last thirty years. Many of the species are also rather lumpy-looking and unappealing, and some are just direct stand-ins for recent mammals. For example, Australia is home to both kangaroo-like and koala-like dinosaurs for no apparent reason other than Australia just being Like That, and South America features very specific anteater, manatee, glyptodont, and sabertooth predator analogues.

Then came Man After Man in 1990. Initially intended to be a direct sequel to After Man, Dixon's original concept would have shown the impact of humans arriving in the Posthomic period, escaping their dying overpopulated civilization by time-traveling into the far future and promptly causing ecological devastation and a mass extinction all over again.

But that was not to be.

Instead the publisher pushed Man After Man in a very different direction, and it became an "anthropology of the future" chronicling the evolution of post-human species genetically engineered to adapt to climate change. Rather grotesque and full of dystopian nightmare fuel, even Dixon himself has called it "a disaster of a project".

(It also suffers from what may be plagiarism, with some of the designs looking worryingly close to those of another project that had been pitched several years previously by Wayne Barlowe. It remains unclear how much involvement and control Dixon actually had with Man After Man after the drastic change in concept, or whether he was even aware of this similarity.)

Some of Dixon's works became especially popular in Japan, with After Man being adapted into both a stop-motion documentary and an animated short, and even having merchandise, and a manga version of The New Dinosaurs.

Later Dixon was a consultant and creature designer on the 2002 documentary series The Future Is Wild, a sort of "spiritual successor” to After Man – although due to the rights to After Man being held by Dreamworks at the time, none of his previous creations could be used. Depicting various ecosystems 5 million, 100 million, and 200 million years in the future, this series featured memorable speculative species such as whale-like gannets, giant carnivorous bats, sauropod-sized tortoises, four-winged birds, aerial fish, and arboreal squid.

The Future Is Wild was also adapted into both a manga and a Canadian-produced animated children's series. There were plans over the years for a sequel documentary series, a feature film version, and then more recently a full reboot (including that VR game with the questionably-designed titan dolphin), but all seem to have succumbed to development hell.

Eventually Dixon's original premise for Man After Man was reworked into Greenworld in 2010 (so far only ever published in Japanese), using his own artwork and changing the setting to an Earth-like exoplanet populated by animals descended from radially-symmetrical starfish-like ancestors. A generation ship carrying thousands of humans fleeing a devastated Earth arrives to colonize the planet – and over the next few centuries they repeat history by exploiting the native lifeforms and putting Greenworld through multiple ecological catastrophes, causing a mass extinction that leaves the entire biosphere in ruins.

At some point another project called Microplatia was also developed for a planned exhibition on alien life at the Science Museum in London, but due to sponsorship issues was never completed.

Tomorrow: an expedition to a different alien world.

[flightfoot]

So considering Wings of Fire track record with “presumed posthomous” characters turning out to be alive and well, who wants to bet that Jerboa II is gonna make an appearance at some point? Especially since there was no reason for her to exist so far. It’s gotta be set up for something later.

[simnovianroyal]

Her Majesty the Queen visited Parliament this morning, making a statement about a vote held regarding the Royal Cemetary.

Mr. Johann Villiers, who was posthomously stripped of his titles by parliament vote, will be exhumed and reburied in a family plot. Mr. Villiers is the late father to His Majesty the King and his sistsers, the Duchesses of Brindleton and Myshuno, later discovered to have been murdered following abuse and infidelity towards the late Queen Josephine, at the hands of her father.

Though the King himself could not make it, tending to state business, the Queen thanked Parliament, saying that at last her mother-in-law could rest peacefully.

[random-axcess-memories]

"That's on me" by Mac Miller hits you hard when you're down and out. It's heart-wrenching when Mac is expressing his up-hill battle with mental health while simultaneously trying to console the grief of the listener. I had put his posthomous album 'Circles' on shuffle, when this song played i just felt a sense of solace hit me unexpectedly. I feel this is the legacy of once the most cheerful lad around, still comforting others while himself being at his lowest.

[study-van]

Today let’s talk about the first woman in history to win a Nobel Prize in literature, Selma Lagerlöf. In addition to the Nobel Prize, she received numerous awards. She became the "grand old lady" in Sweden and a national "Saint". Her reputation was almost spotless, I have to say though she supported a cause like many people at that time in Sweden supported that I don’t condone. Although, she never lived openly with her orientation. In 1992, the Swedish author’s letters to her two concurrent lovers were published in a book Du lär mig att bli fri (You teach me to be free). She had carefully postponed her posthomous "coming out" as a lesbian, until a time when she hoped society would have become tolerant enough to stand the shock. At her death, in fact, homosexuality was still a serious crime in Sweden.

[fymagnificentwomcn]

Which historical figures that were not included in MC&MCK you are most upset about?

Hümaşah Sultan, Şehzade Mehmed’s daughter. I’m actually really surprised that she was omitted because she played an important role during her grandfather’s reign &  she was the only remainder Hürrem and Suleiman had of their prematurely deceased son, so it’s totally weird they never even mentioned her or the mere fact that she had been born posthomously.

I’m surprised because while they had many characters&events in S4 to cover,  but the way they didn’t even mention her existence is puzzling, especially since we saw Mehmed’s concubine at advanced stage of pregnancy during her death? They didn’t do much with Mihrimah’s daughter Ayşe Hümaşah, but at least she existed lol.

Of course I’d really like to see adult Fatma Sultan and Ayşe Sultan (Kösem’s daughters), but here I’m pretty sure we would have got them if they had had the opportunity to film S3, since they were clearly kept for Ibrahim’s reign because we know from sources that they were in capital at that time (because they were reported to be among the ones serving Telli Hümaşah). Here however I understand the omission and also exchanging them for Turhan (wrt to serving Telli thing)… there was no time for new plots, it would have only served to showcase his madness  yet again, and it was more important for writers at that moment to deepen the Ibrahim & Turhan conflict for the main plot (and frankly they made Turhan an important haseki, so she would actually be higher in palace hierarchy than sultan’s sisters). And yes at least we were informed they existed and lived with their husbands away from capital, and Kösem also mentioned that Fatma had children.

Possibility of having adult Ayşe and Fatma was automatically gone when they decided to cancel the show, but why they never even mentioned Mehmed’s Hümaşah is really baffling to me.

- Joanna

[thevagueambition]

damn, just noticed that Max Brod (of “was Kafka’s best friend and published his works posthomously” fame) signed the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee’s petition to repeal paragraph 175 (the law against m/m sex) 

you find connections in the strangest of places, huh

[thats-the-teen-spirit]

Bring Me The Horizon - amo album review

I’ve been a fan of BMTH since the late-There is a hell era and obviously they surprised me once again. I’m gonna go song by song on the album because each of the songs have something in them that differs from the one before.

i apologize if you feel something, the first track is already a lot more different than the previous BMTH albums. It begins as a typical intro with long silences between the melody. Then Oli starts to sing on a really high pitched poppy autotuned voice. You can hear no instruments whatsoever except the synth that plays the melody. Then it changes to this ambient style that somehow suits the band’s music but feels awkward without the guitar and drums. When I first heard this song I already realized it was nothing special, just a little intro that might hype up the crowd before they start performing.

MANTRA, the first single of the album is a little less heavy than the That’s The Spirit era songs. A lot less heavy if you think about how Oli’s vocal style changed since 2015. It finally has drums and heavily distorted low tuned guitar and even screams in the background but it still feels like an alternative rock song just because of the verses and the high pitched bridge. The guitar riff is banging, the chorus is catchy, not a bad song afterall but it will still disappoint the old fans of the band.

nihilist blues is definitely the weirdest song on the record. It’s basically a trance/europop song that divides the listeners to two types: the first one would say: what the fuck is this shit, i’m not listening to this album anymore, and the second one would be: wow they’re brave as hell for doing this, I’m looking forward for the rest. I’m not a big expert on europop or trance or whatever electronic music genres there are but it really reminded me of an Armin van Buuren beat and apparently they copied a little from a relatively new Evanescence song as well. Grimes is featured in the song and her vocal style fits it really well. It has a creepy feeling that makes the song feel like you’re in a club full of drug addicts and the only thing left for you to survive is becoming an addict (for the music). Personally I think probably something like this was on the band’s mind when they wrote this. You definitely won’t like this one unless you like electronic music. You can hear the drums and guitars in it (they’re playing the electronic distorted thing with a tremolo pedal probably) but it’s barely recognizable.

in the dark, the next song has a really strange feeling. It sounds like a pop song because of the samples it uses but it still has the guitar (both clean and distorted) that reminded me of Doomed from the previous album. Both the guitars and the vocals are catchy as hell and after the first few listens you can hear what was the point of writing this song, here that “gateway band” thing begins that Oli mentions in a lot of his recent interviews. They want to be a gateway band that shows people the grand spectrum of music from electronic to heavy metal (or metalcore if you’re a genre-nazi) and do the same thing that Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit did for popularizing the crossover of rap and hip-hop and screamy, heavy rock music. It has the same experiencing feeling that got me into Linkin Park and even tho the song and its lyrics are kinda forgettable, the intention is clear and I personally like it a lot.

wonderful life, the second single of the album is without a doubt one of the heaviest ones on it. The intro seems like a classic BMTH style guitar intro with a little less distortion and a really weird, progressive time signature (for my ear at least). The main riff is simple, heavy and you can definitely bang you head to it. The chorus is catchy, the lyrics are relatable for the emo kids, it has a squealing scream from Dani Filth, which makes it seem like the metalcore days are creeping on the band. The outro chorus reminded me of their song ‘Oh No” from the previous record just because it’s so monumental but maybe that’s just me.

ouch is a cheap interlude in my opinion. It’s not even 2 minutes, the samples get boring in the end. It has a drum and bass kind of feeling to it. It reminded me of Cure For The Itch by Linkin Park, just because of the placement and the “drum” beats on it. The nanana thing that goes on in the chorus also gets boring really quickly. The lyrics are about Oli’s ex-wife Hannah Snowdon and it has a nice throwback to their 2015 song, Follow You with the “under your spell” lines, and it’s clear that he left that time behind with this song.

medicine, the song with the weird-ass video is the next one on the album. If you haven’t heard a single BMTH song in your life and you’re into the more pop-ish side of alternative you’ll probably say: holy shit this is a banger. The first couple of lines in the chorus are really far-fetched in my opinion, it’s the “we’re edgy and cool kids” vibe that is either cringy or makes you feel like the band got old and they still want to appeal to teenagers and young adults. The message of the song is the same as the previous one. The melody of the chorus and the vocals overall are not that bad, they’re catchy, but just like the intro of the album, it still misses the guitars, although this one has some really quiet clean guitars in the background. It’s clear that the vocals are in the focus and it’s stressed by shoving autotuned Oli’s voice down our throat.

sugar, honey, ice and tea is one of my favorites off the album without a doubt. The riff is heavy, the song still feels like an alternative rock song but this time the guitar tone for me seemed like an old HIM song that’s mixed with a That’s the spirit era beat, lyrics and melody. It has the same feeling when I heard Happy Song for the first time but this one has a Throne-like chorus with the samples going instead of Oli’s voice. In the outro Oli goes crazy and lets out Count Your Blessings-era styled screams which definitely help the song appeal to older fans. It’s gonna be played at concerts for sure.

why you gotta kick me when i’m down, oh boy where do i begin. Imagine Post Malone writing a song for a no name alternative rock band. Add overdistorted guitars and a mumble rap beat and lyrics. You’re done, you get this song. It shifts genres so fast that it seems like Oli went from ‘Lil Sykes’ and back to himself a couple times in just 4 minutes. It’s not a terrible song but if you don’t like the style of modern soundcloud rappers and the whole mumble rap mixed with guitars thing you’re gonna hate this one. 

fresh bruises, after the mumble rap song the boys in the band were probably like: hmmm what’s the next popular thing in 2019 that has nothing to do with rock. That’s right:”lo-fi hiphop for sleeping and studying” radios. The lyrics are only 2 lines, the beat gets faster but it’s still boring, even for an interlude. Definitely the most forgettable song in the album.

mother tongue, is the last single before the album came out. It’s the most honest love song from Oli that he’s probably ever gonna write. For personal reasons right now I can relate to it but if you can’t, you’re gonna forget this song even after a couple of listens. It has a powerful chorus, a radio friendly pop beat, cute ass lyrics and the most important thing: it has the potential to infect the radio stations and get the band even more recognition. The chord progression is really popular, (has the same chords as Africa by Toto), the vocals (with the help of autotune) are great. It has the Follow You vibes all over again but here you get an impression of a happy Oli Sykes that is in a fulfilling relationship and has a stable mental state. This progression is really respectable even if you don’t like the song itself.

heavy metal is my most favorite track from the record. It’s basically a huge “fuck you” to the oldest fans who only play Medusa and Pray for Plagues on repeat to this day, 13 years after their release. It’s got that middle finger in the lyrics that makes you think: damn this band really wanted a change and nothing can stop them. The song made me feel like Meteora days Linkin Park once again because of its beatbox styled bridge and the dropped, heavy guitars. This song shows the new direction of the band once and for all: they wanna make all types of music for both new AND old fans (listen to the last couple of seconds for the Pray for Plagues style vocals from Oli) but still says that nope we’re not gonna change, we grew up, we still like our old songs but you’re not gonna hear them from us because we’re different people now. Big props to the band to be this brave and say: this shit ain’t heavy metal.

i don’t know what to say, the last song on the record for me seemed really off topic from the album until I read what it’s written about. It’s about a friend of Oli who passed away from cancer. Oli didn’t write a song posthomously but the lyrics make it seem like he did. The song itself would sound like an 80′s power ballad from a classic rock band for me if I wouldn’t notice Oli’s vocals and the modern drum beat at some places. It even has a damned guitar solo, an acoustic guitar throughout, and orchestra. (which again reminded me Oh No, the closing track of That’s The Spirit) The song is forgettable for me, even though the message is really touching and meaningful. For a closing track it’s good but since it’s really different from the rest of the album it seems that they only put this song on just to honor that friend that it’s written about.

The album is one of the weirdest concepts I’ve heard from any rock band since A Thousand Suns by Linkin Park. The band put their heart and soul in it, you can tell by the level of production. On some songs it’s really well executed, others seem cheap and boring. My summary is that old BMTH is dead, they’re still gonna play rock music as they did with their previous records but they’re gonna expand and experiment to other directions, making it as progressive as possible just to keep the music entertaining.