Cymbals Eat Guitars - LOSE

That’s because LOSE is so much more than High’s death; it’s High’s death as the whirlpool of all the context around it D’Agostino has gained in life since. Now 25, it’s not just the loss of High, it’s the loss of everything D’Agostino knew when High was alive, things he and all young adults in their early 20s can operate on, even if off of fumes. LOSE is the loss of carefreeness, of having honest to God leisure time, of spending your money on theme parks and music and gas for simply driving around all night listening to said music on your shit car CD player. There are an infinite number of ways to cope with loss, many of them self-damaging and unconstructive. D’Agostino’s emotional salve is evidently writing a big fuck-off rock and roll album, and we’re all the better for it.

“Jackson” certainly tops the list of this year’s greatest opening tracks, nowhere is there a bigger, better mission statement for an album or band (even looking at you, “Under The Pressure”). Drifting in on a thick, feedback-laden haze hearkening back to 2011’s Alien Lenses, this quickly melts away to a spacious ambience, driven by a nearly snappy bass/guitar melody. Forgive the obvious parallel, but “Jackson” is truly a roller coaster of a track as the band throws nearly everything but the kitchen sink at it – rising and falling dynamics, falsetto harmonies, an arena-ready guitar solo that would make The Hold Steady blush, a brass fill at the bridge, and even D’Agostino’s own vocal acrobatics ranging from upper register croon to Joe Strummer-esque barks. There’s pain, fear, pleasure, anticipation in the line for the roller coaster at Six Flags - “wait on the weightlessness / the delirious kiss / and the feeling of falling” – it’s a dexterous allegory for the quarter-life crisis, a time equally as thrilling as it is terrifying.

D’Agostino and company proceed to bash the hell out of the punk-inflected power pop of “Warning” and the amphetamine-fueled Pogues-ish stomp of “XR”, name checking their old Jersey area haunts, bemoaning the feeling of “wanting to wake up and listen to records” again. The band turns inward on “Child Bride”, a delicate paean to one of D’Agostino’s middle school classmates who succeeded in school amidst a violent home life that ultimately drove him to personal failure and drugs. The title, in particular, is a clever and potent allusion to the life of one whose unfortunate future is paved on their behalf, out of their control, and the song serves as a sobering emotional check against those more fortunate’s feelings of regret and woe.

Stand out track, “Chambers”, is D’Agostino’s stake in the ground, the point at which LOSE has finally clawed its way through its past to the present day. Against an impossibly crystalline slab of strutting ‘80s guitar pop, D’Agostino illustrates his current domestic situation of living with his parents and grandparents with the aged dog from his youth. It’s celebratory, bittersweet, slightly rueful, his interactions with his dog, in particular, heart-rending and charming – “she’s got cataracts…the sunshine caught in her eyes is from another time / she’s deaf but she listens to me / she sniffs beneath my door”. The heart of the song is the heart of LOSE itself; D’Agostino knows how what’s happened in his life until now has shaped him now, and when he at last appears to look forward, declaring “it’s what it felt like / when I was 25”, you can feel the shackles of his past shaken off as he readies to move forward.

I’m 33 now, just slightly longer removed from 25 as D’Agostino is from his best friend’s death. A hell of a lot has changed – I moved away from home, my last grandparent died, my parents divorced after over 30 years of marriage, my brother has been to jail, I’ve gotten engaged and married, I’ve had a child. These past 8 years have inarguably included the highest points of my life thus far – and some of the lowest. I’d love to tell you I don’t worry about things like I did at 25 and that the road ahead is clearly marked. I do and it’s not, and it will always be this way, it’s what makes life, in a worn out word, interesting. Being scared shitless at 25 is natural and the fear is not unfounded, but you make it through and you still get scared shitless - it’s progress, it’s a sign you actually are doing something right. Joseph D’Agostino and Cymbals Eat Guitars certainly have done right with LOSE; it’s an impeccably beaten, teary-eyed but smiling document to a frighteningly exhilarating time of one’s life and beacon to march onward – momentous to anyone in their 20s, and even us still neurotic old guys.