Soundwaves crawling through the Air

While I've had some awareness of Lifelover for a number of years, I didn't start listening to their music until recently. I knew they were a Swedish band, but I didn't realize just exactly how close to home they were until I journeyed through their discography and found that particular gray Stockholm melancholia I've been missing from... just about every band I've been listening to up until this point.

They were the missing piece; a sound I like that is intrinsicially tied to where I'm from and grew up, predominantly sung in my native language. Lifelover's music touches a deeply buried, vulnerable part of me that while I've known nothing I've listened to has quite reached it I didn't realize how detrimental this was for my music identity.

I greatly admire Kim Carlsson for his struggles and artistic expression, and while I understand from an artistic point of view that there comes a time where you've done all you set to do with your art, I'm still sad that Lifelover doesn't make music anymore, and hasn't for a while.

I like Kim's other projects, but Lifelover captured something that I was sorely missing, and I wish there was more of it. Choosing only six tracks to display here was obscenely difficult. I'd showcase their entire discography if it wouldn't take up too much space.

Although I've known about NiN since I was sentient, around pre-adolescence, I didn't get properly into them until recently, and they have quickly risen to the top of my all-time favorites. The violent, industrial sounds and gut-wrenching despairing lyrics speak to something primal in me that I've been needing for a while. Plus, Trent is such an unapologetic absolute weirdo I can't help but feel inspired.

The very first song of theirs I heard was Closer, as it is for many people I'm sure, but the first one that gripped me was Dead Souls, which I rediscovered a little while back on my fresh-obsessive foray into their discography.

The chief albums of theirs for me, though, has to be The Fragile and With_Teeth - but I can easily find a track I love to death on any of their albums. Whenever I find it within myself to mess around in FL Studio, Nine inch Nails and their particular sound is on the forefront of my mind. Plus, Trent plays the keyboard just like yours truly.

I've liked Nirvana since I was a teenager. I had a friend in school in the same grade as me, though a different class, that was hardcore into them, and it made me curious to check them out. I had my share of troubles at the time that their music helped alleviate in a sort of melancholy artistry that I greatly admired. Kurt's lyrics were poetic, almost esoteric and hard to parse (especially for someone who English was a second language) but it still spoke to me nonetheless. I jumped at the chance to sing Heart-Shaped Box in music class, even though I have never really been the performing type, especially not with something so nerve-wracking as singing.

Nirvana was also the first band where I actually knew the names of every member, which normally isn't something that I paid a lot of attention to; ordinarily my focus was solely on the music, but something about this band in particular had me looking into who the musicians were as people. I don't listen to them quite as often anymore, certainly not compared to my teenage self, but there are a good amount of tracks that I hold very dear, and I still wear the Nirvana hoodie I got well over a decade ago.