No Closer to Heaven - The Wonder Years (2015)

⭐ 10.0/10

(Originally written by hoodie_logi)

As long as I've been listening to music, I never thought that an album could challenge my love for Death Cab For Cutie's album, Plans, for the title of my favourite album of all time. But after discovering this album about 6 months ago, it's becoming clear to me that Death Cab may have a contender.

This album, same as Plans in fact, is a deep foray into death, grieving and loss. The album is written in response to a number of traumatic events experienced by lead singer Dan "soupy" Campbell. Namely, he lists a writer's block so severe it led him down a road into a deep depression, and the overdose of a close friend during this time period. The album dives into this posture of hopelessness in the face of uncertainty of purpose and our knowledge of death.

The album opens, and uses this refrain throughout a few later songs. "We're no saviours, if we can't save our brothers", sung in an anthemic chorus. In the face of personal tragedy, Soupy reflects on the title of saviour that is often given to musicians (fans saying you're music saved me etc.), the fame, influence and all the clout that goes along with being a public figure, and rejects it all. To him, all he has means nothing if he can't save those closest to him.

I think the most powerful song is "cigarettes and saints", which has Soupy reflecting on the death of his friend after his funeral. His reflection on religion is honest. He doesn't think believe in a heaven, but he likes the thought of picturing his friend there. He hated the words of the pastor, but the idea that his friend is sharing cigarettes with saints in heaven, finally at peace. Soupy doesn't claim to know what happens after we die, and there's both a hopelessness and a peace in that.

Another theme that runs throughout the album that really strikes me, is Soupy identifying as a Cardinal that died upon crashing into a window. The second track on the album begins this feeling of hitting a wall and dying in the face of his friends overdose. He reaches a point on the song, "a song for Ernest Hemingway", where he sings arguably my favourite line of the album, "I'll be your dead bird / You'll be my bloodhound / You're just doing what you're told / Pick my body off the ground... which leads into the statement, "at least I didn't die for nothing." In the face of hopelessness, staring down death, Soupy reflects that he at least meant something to his fans.

There is a lot more powerful imagery and poetry I could describe here, but I will try and keep it short. You can ask me about it later. At the end of the album, after all this wrestling, the album's closing and title track, has Soupy at a point where, he doesn't have the answers, and he doesn't need them. After the entire grieving process he does not feel any closer to Heaven or religion, but he's still hopeful. He comes to the conclusion that no matter what we go through, we have to keep walking in our lives to honour those that came before us.

The album reminds me a bit of the book of Job. We don't have the answers, we don't see where our suffering is leading too, but we keep walking. We walk in hope of something better, something we get to be a part of. We have to make the world a better place, to help honour those we've lost.

Maybe it's the pandemic and this learning sense of uncertainty that persists, but this album has meant so much to me over the past few months. Both Plans and No Closer to Heaven unpack dealing with loss in a very different way. Both beautiful, both honest, both meaningful. I'd really recommend sitting with this album.