2014 was a pretty momentous year for me, in that it was the year I became a dad. And somehow my favorite album from that year is one that opens with the line, “Open up your murder eyes and see the ugly world that spat you out.” There’s also a song about the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, myriad references to Werner Hezog’s Bad Lieutenant 2: Port of Call New Orleans, and a showstopping ode to breaking down in tears watching a video installation of Linda Rondstadt. It’s an album that covers all of the ugliness of our everyday lives and always refuses to sugarcoat it. “I can’t handle astounding moments of beauty,” sings Sean Bonnette on “Linda Rondstadt,” “I think I like my pretty pretty ugly.” Bonnette’s ability to capture the human experience--the actual human experience, not the one we put on Instagram to show our family and friends, or whatever--is unflinching, and that has always been what has drawn me to AJJ. There’s a bit of truth-telling to the whole thing, and while things are frequently cynical and hopeless-feeling, Bonnette encourages us to soldier on. Or maybe not, I’m not sure, I always felt like this album was about surviving in spite of all of the horrible shit we have to live through both inside and outside of ourselves.
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