AJJ - The Bible 2
SideOneDummy, 2016
It sounds corny, but I don’t know if there’s another band that can play on the same wavelength as my soul as AJJ does. Their records feels so right to me, and I feel like I know them by heart the first time I listen to them. Listening to their records is the closest I’ll ever get to reading a self-help book. Though this album is full of darkness, but it’s also about overcoming that darkness and crawling out into the light (or at least accepting your fate). “No more shame, no more fear, no more dread” is an affirmation I still ascribe to and use like a mantra. The Bible 2 is a bigger album than AJJ had produced up until this point, and feels like the band maturing while still keeping that special, grungy thing that makes them special sacred. Sean Bonnette’s songs paint the world as a bit of a hellscape, but it’s a hellscape we have to do our best to live in, and we should try to make it the best hellscape on the block. One thing AJJ's music has helped me with is addressing my own personal issues with anxiety and depression (which hit hard when the thyroid cancer hit and never left) and seeking help managing them with medication and meditation instead of bottling them up and living with perpetual stress headaches. Not that any of that is explicit in the lyrics, but there's so many themes about confronting the ugliness of the world and ourselves that their music makes me feel more human than any other music.
Fun aside: Rosie was 2 when this came out and it was before she started demanding Disney Princess music or the UglyDolls soundtrack, and we listened to this one in the car a lot. Her singing along to the “I love you cuz I love you cuz I can” part from “Junkie Church” and “I saw white worms I saw white worms” part from “White Worms” is still one of the sweetest memories I have of her from that age.
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