Have a Nice Life - "Deathconsciousness"

Have a Nice Life - Hunter (Enemies List 2008)

Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness / Enemieslist

"The band Have a Nice Life would like to announce that they have recorded the most depressing in the history of music. (Learn More)"

More: It's entirely possible that you may not have heard of Connecticut duo Have a Nice Life, or maybe you've dismissed them because of their absurdly "ironic" band name or the fact that their street team is so dedicated they've made it feel like there were more than 200 copies pressed with the 75-page booklet by their own Enemieslist imprint. But the buzz isn't in all the right places yet, and as I listen to this record, I expect to hear myself asking the same question others are asking who haven't yet heard Deathconsciousness for themselves: What would people want with an 85-minute double disc with "Death of Marat" on the cover for when they could just as easily go for A Place to Bury Strangers or, one better, Swans?

The answer is that this record, though flawed, is still worth hearing for so many reasons. The weak point first: Yes, it is 85 minutes. If you're listening to it straight through and don't really, really love the sound that's displayed from second track "Bloodhail" onward (Opener "A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut" sounds more like Mogwai's "Stanley Kubrick" than anything else), then you're not going to be able to survive the journey to the end of the ear-shattering "Earthmover." It's a pretty consistent album all the way through with some slower Gregorian chanting to balance out the overmodulated noise-pop that peeks out from behind all the reverb and darkwave posturing. There are no brave new steps, no swashbuckling gestures, no bold moves that haven't already boldly been moved two decades ago.

But Have a Nice Life are good despite all of that for the same reasons that their New York City counterparts garnered so much acclaim last year: They like it loud, and they really don't care what that does to your headphones when you're listening. Even though the recordings sound for the most part like they were recorded on the floor of a high school gym with mics set in the bleachers, this distance allows the music to cloud over itself in a way that only distracts on the filler songs. It's hardly all killer-no filler, but for a first effort some four years in the making, Deathconsciousness is as gloriously overwrought as its Darklands-aping contemporaries and easily batting in the same cage as The Cure's epic Disintegration.

I don't see much worth in pointing out any particular track; there are a few other places who have spit solid verse on this record that I don't think I can add much to, other than that there is a lot more emotion and aggression behind those echoing vocals and endlessly reverberating guitars - one listen to "Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail" will be the selling point on that. Perhaps the Achilles Heel of reviewing a record like this is that once everybody throws out the typical namedrops and makes most obvious mention of the thematic concerns and has established the tone and tendencies, there isn't much more to add beyond individual song descriptions, but who needs that? For me, five paragraphs is enough. Rather than a comprehensive review or a definitive source for information, let this be a supplement to what you think you already know. Let this be the link Enemieslist did not give you. Even though there are no plans to press more of this record, hopefully they will change their minds. One can only imagine how loud Have a Nice Life are in person, too. Does Oliver Ackerman lose sleep over Have a Nice Life at night? (Learn More)