How CLIFFDIVER is helping consoling me through a break-up, unpacking a 12 year old trauma, and exercise my own demons

 

Tulsa, OK’s CLIFFDIVER have released their debut record Exercise Your Demons on SideOneDummy Records. This is a band that I wasn’t familiar with before singles for this project yet have material dating back to at least 2018. I wanted to cover and highlight this band for the fact that their big tour off the release of this record was stopped in its tracks due to a COVID case in the band but as I started to dive deeper in to get familiar it became so much more. This record not only impressed me in terms of quality but really hit me in the deepest recesses of the current state of my mental health in the best way.

The band get’s you in the door with a fun ska rager on “New Vegas Bomb.” This song, which was also the first single, features Skatune Network, whose involvement I do not know the full extent of but given the knowledge I have of that project and the context offered in the video I can only assume they helped co write the tracks bridge. The lines and vocals the record kicks off on;

Maybe I’m just a used up party kid after all just drowning in fear and debt and copious amounts of alcohol.

Demonstrate co lead vocalists, Joey and Bri’s, incredible chemistry and ability to play off of one another. Also the main hook of the chorus;

We won’t waste time with second guessing when we’re stoned making out to Third Eye Blind-

Is, I’ll admit, hard not to sing along to and maybe even stronger than that in the same section is saxophonist Dony’s playing. The pieces they perform in this chorus are just the vocal melody playing alongside the vocals themselves, which really elevate that emotion to a higher level.

Almost immediately we dive right into the darkness on the record’s second track; “Who Let the Hawgz Out?” For as fun as the first song is we did see tinges of there being something wrong just below the surface but here it really comes out to play.

Still got this taste in my mouth from the cheap cigarettes that I bummed from my friends who probably hate me now.

This narrator is really going through it which is demonstrated in the song’s video. In which vocalist Bri is drinking the pain away at a bar all of which is well narrated. The lyrics make many references to drinking to fall asleep, being aware that you will regret this in the morning. The sole lyrics on this chorus are literally;

We both know how the story ends, it’s three A.M. and I’m drunk again.

Not only in mood but CLIFFDIVER demonstrates genre flexibility too. On the first track we got ska and on track two we get post-harcore with sax. The sax line, by the way, is incredible, guitar players Matt and Gil lay down some real heavy riffing, drummer Eliot is playing so swiftly that it comes off near blast-beat. All this to say I really appreciate how we lure our listener in with a good time then immediately show them the inner workings of the author’s mind when they’re past the threshold.

On “We Saw the Same Sunset” we really get to see this band’s ability to pace out songs. On this one we start just bare bones acoustic and vocals, percussion comes in on the second layer and then the whole band on the final stretch. When they come in it’s huge, the saxophone is soaring and it still holds true to the balladry nature of the song. The narrative is getting really clear now as we see this author come to terms with emotions they’ve bottled up for so long. In the first piece of the song you find them wondering if things will ever change. On the second a certain acceptance is starting to wash over them. Finally, when the track really erupts, it all comes out. When you hit a realization this big, even if your life is turned upside down, even if it hurts, the truth is out there now and once you’ve seen it? You can never go back the same.

Okay, Aster, maybe we’re projecting just a bit.

In all seriousness this is the beauty I see in “Sunset’s” progression. That final piece of music sounds beautiful but it also sounds pained. The first lyrics to the outro are simply; “You never said goodbye.” That’s heavy and it comes before we even hit the true mid section of the record. It makes sense, however that the plot line moves fast, the album is fast. Heartbreak as well as the act of falling apart are both fast.

We get the heaviest track sonically on “Death is a Wedding.” A sequencing choice that makes sense given that the true fallout and confrontation would occur after the “sunset” of the situation as it were. This song also has, what is possibly, my favorite lyric of the entire record;

I’m not the one who’s haunting you, what’s done is done I never knew this is a race that we would run, I lost and you won.

Which is not only such an intense thing to say and put on a record but its portrayal in how it’s delivered is articulated perfectly.

On “Super Saiyan Al Pacino” we get another sign of that progression with another acoustic start up. This time, however, as opposed to sad, we get a delivery from Joey that’s more snide and crude. There is also the “you swear you used to have friends” line that I quite enjoy for the parallel to the line from “Hawgz” especially when it’s being sung by the opposite vocalist in the opposite perspective. Also just when I thought it had been awhile since the last taste of ska the tracks entire outro ends with an instrumental that sounds fun but also pained. I also enjoy that it remains instrumental and let’s you really soak that in.

It’s three P.M. and I’m still in bed.

Is the line that opens “Dick Van Yikes,” a song that starts a turning point of the record where we’re starting, sonically anyway, to learn how to have a bit of fun again. I also love how this parallels the fallout from “Hawgz” showing that, yes, you will regret it the next day. That ability to draw those parallels goes hand in hand with another aspect of this band I really enjoy, which is their unique way of drawing out vocal harmonies. The line;

Will I ever truly see me the way that others swear I can be? Or will I bleed myself empty on some God forsaken street?

Has a key example of just that. In it Bri is more or less shouting in the back of Joey’s performance and it’s an excellent contrast to behold. I have to really compliment the “Wonka boat disaster” metaphor too. Comparing a hard time to being on the Willy Wonka boat is a draw that I don’t think many would make and yet the comparison is so clear in my mind. Once again showing their flexibility, CLIFFDIVER offers us a full-on breakdown in this one that is both heavy and uplifting. It’s incredible how much emotional depth this band can show on even a single part. This is another one where sax is key, it’s just smooth and beautiful note-holding. I fear that my rundown on this particular track is a little scattered but it's just a real testament to this band’s talent.

Eliot’s percussion really stands out on “I Left My Heart at Lemon Lake,” it’s simplistic but it guides the whole song. This one is totally led by Bri vocally who does so well on this performance. The melody is simplistic but it’s that distinct method of delivery that really shines. It’s yet another song on this record that, when you know it well enough, it's hard to not get caught up in its place and, full transparency, it does just that.

Maybe this track doesn’t quite hit the emotion to me personally that the rest of the record does, but on this song, something hit me, something hit me hard. So hard that I welled up in the notes taking session for this review.

Graduated angry at me, twelve years gone and nothing’s changing, swear I’m on the verge of breaking down.

As I’ve alluded to one whole time on this blog a few weeks ago, when I was younger I met someone in my high school that I really looked up to. It took me a long time to unpack why I did and although I told everyone I knew constantly how sad I was that this friendship fell apart, I always felt like I never really dealt with that feeling. The weird thing? It’s been just that. I graduated high school twelve years ago. I never saw my hero again except for one time at a gas station where they pretended not to see me.

Lost in the best and worst that I’ve said. What I did was a mess, what I’ll do is accept I’m not the victim.

I’d like to suggest that I’m cursed but I guess that I can’t now that I’m finally starting to grow up.

The thing is, for years I really hated this person for cutting ties with me. I tried my best never to bring them up in conversation cause I knew it’d hurt. They were always in the back of my mind though, until they weren’t, then they were again. When they were again was last year, when my therapist told me she was quitting her job. In our last several sessions we unpacked a lot of my childhood including this very connection. It hit me that what I needed was someone to relate to, what I wanted was someone to protect me. For the short time I knew this person no one could touch me. Kids in school would get any bullying they threw at me handed right back to them. Every traumatic situation my family put me through, this person had been there with theirs and told me just what I needed to hear. I recognize now, as a near-thirty year old that I took advantage of that. Everyone runs out of steam eventually.

But I won’t let it get to me, cause feelings turn to memories, maybe that’s not such a bad thing now.

As I prepare to leave my hometown, (yea.) I find myself meeting all kinds of people I haven’t seen in a long time for my goodbyes. I know that particular one isn’t coming, though, they probably are still in this city somewhere, but I can’t see them. I can hold onto the positive reinforcement they gave me though. In fact, I think it’s important that I do. I’m not sure how they’d respond to who I’ve become, but I don’t know who they’ve become and in a way? This is me finally unpacking it for real.

So I won’t let ‘em get to me the feelings or the memories, maybe I deserve a good thing after all.

Uh, we’ll actually loop back to that, you probably want to hear more about music anyway.

I absolutely love “IKEA Strikes Back” as an outro to this record. You know, on tracks one and two I said that the fun stuff gets you inside then the darkness comes right along, but it’s so much more than that. In the mid section of this record we start to come to terms with the things hurting us, on “Lemon Lake” we process it, accept that we deserve happiness, then we have one more skafest for a bit of fun to close it out. This narrator really worked to find peace within themselves and I’d say they did just that.

During the process of consuming this record on a deeper level and constructing this review I am going through my first break up ever from a relationship that has lasted half of my entire life. While the words and stories on here didn’t get me to this point, they are helping me through it. That and the intense emotional depth found in the flexible sonics and influences. It’s scary changing your entire life around, it’s hard to leave someone you’ve loved for so long and haven’t really stopped, but it’s like I said before. Once you’ve seen the cracks at the roots, it’s hard to ever come back the same. This is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Even harder than, no, actually, we’ll talk about that another time.

As I write this, as you read this, we’re coming up on the last review released in quarter two of 2022. In quarter three I plan on changing a couple of things around, more so on the branding side of AsterTracks but also plan on being a bit more half-review, half-personal essay like you’ve seen here. People were really responsive to how true to myself I was on my 100th post and it made me feel more comfortable being honest here. As I said above, please if you can, support CLIFFDIVER in any way possible. The band had a whole tour lined up that they were stopped from completing due to COVID and I would hate to see them hurt off the tail end of a record that has earned them so much praise. I’m sure though, that like they’ve shown me to, they can pick up and get back up again.

After all, there’s no use in feeling useless.

CLIFFDIVER official website

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