Tag Archives: love/hate

#1231: Nine Black Alps – So in Love

1 Reply

Although I wished it wasn’t the case, I remember being slightly disappointed by Nine Black Alps’ Love/Hate album. Their debut Everything Is was and is so great. The power and energy from the songs on there was off the scale. The 12-year-old me in late 2007 was expecting the same when the band’s sophomore album came around. That wasn’t to be the case though. There was less power and more of a focus on the musicality and the melodies with a rougher recording style too. The songs didn’t leave much of an effect on me, except ‘Forget My Name’ which I’ve written about before. I ripped it to my iTunes library, though. Could always have another listen one day.

And years later I did. I can’t remember what year exactly. I’m sure it would have been after the band released their third album. Maybe even their fourth. But it was on that re-listen that ‘So in Love’, the ninth song on Love/Hate suddenly sprang out to me. That particular track is the shortest one on the album, a sharp shock lasting for just over two minutes. It’s led by an ugly-sounding riff that’s more Nirvana than anything they did on the first album, as Sam Forrest alternates between softly singing and harshly yelling about the chokehold being in love can have on a person. Or at least that’s what I get from listening and looking at the lyrics.

‘Burn Faster’ was the first single to be released in the lead-up to Love/Hate. If you listen to that song, you can probably tell why. But I like to imagine a world where ‘So in love’ was that first piece of new music Nine Black Alps provided after those couple years of waiting. It’s really nothing like anything on Love/Hate and is a bit of a ‘What the fuck’ moment as a result, but it still has those melodic hooks than can win you over. The “Try to get out, try to get out” choruses sound so ’90s and are fun to sing along too, there’s a use of two-part harmonies during the verses that they never did on their first album. The whole track gives a huge rush that is sorely missing throughout the whole record. A lot of the B-sides from this era of the band probably could have been on here instead. There’s one in particular that will come around on here soon.

My iPod #386: Nine Black Alps – Forget My Name

1 Reply

“Forget My Name” is one of my favourite songs from Nine Black Alps’ “Love/Hate” album. Though I’ve stated time and time again that it’s not my preferred album of the band’s, it does have this one. And it’s because of this track (and another one, but I won’t tell) that I think that I should really start to give it another try.

The track is about someone being fed up with people and life in general, that they wish to stop existing. Now there’s nothing about dying or committing suicide (there is that interpretation), but don’t get that idea. I think it’s more about wanting to disappear completely from the world and for it to exist like you were never born in the first place, because you feel like it’s the perfect place to be if you weren’t there at all.

“Love/Hate” was a lighter and softer approach the band had to their music after “Everything Is”, but “Forget My Name” brings a 90s indie rock feel to the album, with a sliding riff that repeats throughout (whether it be from the bass or the guitars) a snarling vocal performance topped off with a few growls near the end by Sam Forrest and a general crunchy and moody atmosphere purveyed by the group as a whole.

A small note, I also like how the song mirrors the guitar rundown introduction at the ending of the song, where instead the guitar notes slide up the neck climaxing with a few sparks of feedback. Think it’s quite cool.