15 YEARS OF DEATHCONSCIOUSNESS
By Nick Caceres
Published: 1/25/2023
Photo Courtesy of Emily VanGraafeiland, Paste Magazine
The 15th anniversary of one of the most noteworthy underground releases of the 2000s just came and went. So it would make sense to look back at this album and what it brought to the table.
If you've ever perused online music communities such as Rate Your Music, some subreddits, Instagram and 4Chan’s /mu/ chances are you may have come across this release. Perhaps these users would not shut up about this album, making it hard to dodge. There’s a perfect reason why this is the case and it involves dialing it back over 20 years ago.
Formed in Middletown, Connecticut in 2000, Have A Nice Life is comprised of Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, two artists who were involved in the underground punk scene of New England. Their style consisted of lo-fi emo folk with slacker rock influences which entwined dark humor and nihilism with the lyrics. These early tracks were released on a small cassette run in 2002 titled “Have A Nice Life vs You.” In the same year, they began creating what would eventually become their debut. However, due to these two having careers outside of their duo, this took around five years to complete.
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
This long period of production was not completely quiet, however. The duo performed small gigs in the New England area throughout the early to mid-2000s. While video documentation of these early performances is rare, one of their shows at the Umass Amherst Craft Center Open Mic Night in 2004 was filmed and uploaded to Youtube by user Jamesiscoolbeans in 2014.
Full Performance: Part 1/Part 2
In 2006, two EPs dropped, leaking portions of Deathconsciousness showcasing what would become some of their most famous tracks both in their demo state with “Demos 06” and fleshed out with “Powers of Ten.”
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Finally, in 2008, the album was officially released on January 24. Their sound, at this point, was influenced by a variety of genres and groups like My Bloody Valentine, Sunn O))), Joy Division and Swans.
The opening track, “A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut,” is a string-pluck-filled ambient commencement that sets the entire tone for the album. The atmosphere is then cut, leading into “Bloodhail” with its addictive pulsating post-punk swing washed in atmospheric shoegaze-esque melodies. The following two tracks, "The Big Gloom” and “Hunter,” pull directly from post-rock with their instrumental build-ups. Later on in the album, “Who Would Leave Their Son out in the Sun?” despairingly oozes through gothic reverb, then slips into earth shattering drone that muffles all human voices in “There Is No Food.” Next is “Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail,” a track directly inspired by the post-punk of the 80s with its playful guitar melodies in. Perhaps the most serene part of the album is the track “Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000” with its beeping synths dancing over a guitar and piano duet. Later, “Deep, Deep” circles back to that slapping post-punk. At last the final track, “Earthmover,” has one of the greatest drops in music history.
Due to the sensitive content of the lyrics there won't be too much detail however the main ideas behind these tracks are the hopelessness regarding existentialist and deterministic philosophies. These themes are what truly bring Deathconsciousness to life.
Even though it took five years to complete, the album received little immediate attention and seemed destined to fade into obscurity which was expected by the artists. Fortunately, not even a year later, multiple internet forums would discover the album and spread it across the internet, spawning a cult following due to its unique sound and lyricism. Their popularity would further grow when they were signed by San Francisco-based label The Flenser in 2014, in which they would release two more albums.
“Deathconsciousness” is a cornerstone of modern underground music, acclaimed for its nuanced contributions and reworkings of dark and depressing themes within multiple genres. It is a gloomy masterpiece that should not be passed up.