Nocturnal Future
I have a very personal relationship with music; this article will really focus on that, within reason of what I feel is appropriate to share to a public-facing platform.
What The Word Alive means to me, why and how I found them, etc. is not something I care to share. But “Nocturnal Future,” first released as a single in late 2022 before their latest album Hard Reset (2023), is far and away my favorite song of theirs.
The emotional connection I have with this song is much too personal (and long) for me to fully explore here. Speaking generally, this song resonates with me on every level: the intro of entirely dirty vocals followed by the guttural, soul-shattering scream of Telle (nickname of lead singer Tyler Smith), the simple yet piercing lyrics, the beautiful mixing of drums and guitars (far too out of my forte to comment on any specifics here), the dramatic build up and the raw passion emanating from Telle’s voice.
“Nocturnal Future” speaks to me precisely because it is one of the few songs capable of capturing every emotion I feel as I gaze upon a world of constant crisis, subjugation, domination, and death. I will focus on two key parts of the song, else there will be too much for me to say.
The introduction:
It’s feeling like the world is just a wicked game
Sell ourselves and lost all shame
Aren’t you tired of living with your eyes shut…
Are you living with your eyes shut?
These lyrics are initially sung completely dirty and followed by an incredibly passionate, resounding scream which lasts about 7 seconds. This dynamic perfectly captures the rage, frustration, desperation, anguish the lyrics which precede it express: a passionate cry for anyone to listen, a primal, exasperated scream because you know nobody will. This is then incorporated into the chorus, along with this addition of lines:
Find the truth I know that we’re afraid of
’Cause the world is such a wicked game
We’re numb to war, we look away
I say try to fix the pain that we made
Face the dark sun, don’t look away
Conveyed in a different tone, one that does not part with the rage and desperation of the introduction but that invites the listener to “face the dark sun”: to confront the grim reality of our world, to stop running from and ignoring the hauntings (see: Avery Gordon, Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity) around you, to take action into our own hands and fight that nocturnal future which is ever more surely revealing its wicked face (and to stand alongside those who have never known a future which was not nocturnal — who have always been consciously subject to the kyriarchy).
The dichotomy of the last lines of the first and second verses are also particularly powerful to me.
Verse 1:
Life’s not made for the hopeful ones
It makes you run from what you trust
Verse 2:
Life is made for the hopeful ones
Hope you bring us better days
Both verses in their entirety are incredibly poignant, but this contrast between these two sets of lines sticks out to me — not only lyrically, but also through Telle’s tone:
- The first verse is left hanging, drawn out, conveyed from a point of total exhaustion, as if one has given up and recognized the hopelessness of the situation; they have exhausted their capacity to hope, their will to fight. The transition into the chorus reflects this: the slight pause after the drawn out last line and before the chorus starts (and the song picks up), again conveying that feeling of desperation and a cry to listen — a contradiction between your supposed resignation and that flame that still burns inside.
- The tone of the second verse is in and of itself much less hopeless: it invites action, it creates a feeling of resurgence as it transitions immediately and intensely into the chorus — as if now invoking (and for the speaker, reigniting) a will to fight rather than surrendering oneself to what seems like an insurmountable battle; a hope not necessarily that a better, different world will be achieved, but the hope and joy that comes with fighting towards it (and the hopelessness and grief which accompanies it — which the first verse so perfectly conveys).
There is much more to dissect, and far too much left for me to say, but I believe the bigger picture has been painted: embracing that nocturnal future (and present), finding the will and hope to fight against it and towards a liberated world, as hopeless, as futile, as impossible as it may seem — because there is no other choice. Because nobody else will save us. Because if not us, then who?
