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Dear Vessel

My favorite band for most of my life has been Hanson. Yes, the Mmmbop boys. They’ve never stopped making music and they constantly tour. They have a massive fanbase, made mostly of millennials, but they are beloved in their own right. I’ve been to a few of their concerts, and loved them. They know their fans and they know their crowd.

Last year, May 2024, I first heard Chokehold by Sleep Token and I kind of “oh, well, that’s different.” and I didn’t give it a second listen. Then I heard The Summoning on an instagram ad for a spicy book I didn’t read, and I looked it up properly on Spotify. There were several people who commented on videos saying, “I just don’t get Sleep Token. They’re not even that good. They’re not metal.” (Which is funny because the band has never said they were, and there’s just been this grumbling about them for whatever reason.) People were actively hating on the music because they didn’t “get it.”

I’ve listened to Sleep Token almost exclusively since that day.

When the new album was announced earlier this year, I kind of felt like a poser because I wasn’t really into the lore of who Sleep is or whatever, so when people were discussing the theories behind the released songs and what they meant, I just kind of “but they sound right.”

I think that’s where I’ve been so fascinated. The music is correct. It fits into the spaces of my brain that need filling, and I don’t need to change the metaphorical station to remain content.

I do have a superpower of being able to listen to a song on repeat for days on end, but I wasn’t doing it often. Usually just for writing sessions if I needed to keep a certain emotional mindset. When Even In Arcadia was released, I listened to it on repeat for months. Over and over and over until I felt like the very drumbeats were stamped on my bones. It’s a perfect album, in my opinion.

I wish I could tell Vessel thank you. I wish I could tell him that the way he hears the world is such a beautiful, heart-wrenching thing. He uses phrases like “buckling sutures” and words like “loamy” in his lyrics.

I got to see them in concert last night in Cleveland. I’m glad my friends took videos and photos because I just listened. I sank into the happiness that I rarely allow myself to feel and I heard Vessel sing. He’s incredible live. The whole band is. I got to hear my favorite songs (Vore, Infinite Baths) and I got to spend the night with some of my favorite people experiencing the wonder Vessel is.

Sleep Token fans get a lot of shit, and some of us deserve it because there are more than a few who don’t know how to behave around others. Some don’t know how to respect privacy. Some who don’t know how to just listen.

But there are those who are eager to fall into the sound, Vessel. I promise we hear it and we see it and we love it. We love you for who you are. The man behind the mask can stay unknown because the words you give us through Vessel are enough. You are enough.

One of the friends I was with last night took a video of me during the performance of Vore, my favorite song of the entire discography, and I wish I could show Vessel. I don’t consider myself beautiful, but the pure joy on my face gave me a moment of seeing it. That’s what Sleep Token does for me. It allows me to see myself the way others see me.

So, thank you, Vessel.

Salisbury.Fake Life, Weekly Update

Youth and All Her Follies

I’ve been on somewhat of a nostalgia kick recently. My Instagram feed is full of all these clips from Halo releases and someone posted (again) that video of kids from a 2000s year at high school, where it was a camcorder, not a phone.

I think I missed a bit of that being a kid stuff, but the bits I got to have are pretty solid bits. Whether it’s swimming in a pool with my best friend while it’s raining out, driving to Rally’s (pre-vegetarian days) after school to grab a burger (before burgers were 12 dollars), watching my brother play video games on our small TV while our mom taught piano lessons. That last one is probably one of the best ones.

One of the things I always looked forward to when I was smaller was the yearly trek to Peoria, Illinois for family reunions. I never spoke to the people I saw there except at those reunions. My great-grandmother’s children decided to hold these reunions once everyone started spreading out. There were 9 children total, 8 survived to adulthood, my grandma was the baby.

My great-grandmother had all of her children by the time she turned 44. I’m turning 37 this year and while I don’t have 9 children, I wonder if my great-grandmother would understand the pride I’m building in myself. For staying even when I want to leap into the void. For continuing onward, with a dogged determination to prove the bastards in my brain wrong, that I am worthy of being here.

Life was a different kind of challenging for her, especially as the mother of so many children. Things known as an instinct now were being discovered when she was a teenager. She saw two world wars while trying to raise her family. She had sons fight in the second, two of whom were in some of the bloodiest battles. I can’t even pretend to know what that kind of fear feels like.

The point of this whole thing is to say Labor Day weekend is when the reunion always takes place. I’m still on the email list (something not around in Martha’s time) so I know when and where it’s happening, but after my grandmother died, I couldn’t bring myself to keep going. It was different without her. Not quite empty, because there were familiar faces, but more of a dissonance. A chiming of bells that didn’t ring together.

It’s always a time of reflection for me on Labor Day. Now that I’m in a job that gives me the day off, it’s easier to look back at what being young was for me. Young and full of whatever propelled me onward, ready to bolt toward the future of uncertainties and unknowns.

I don’t know what Martha would think of me. I’m only just now starting to shift my own thoughts of myself. But I like to think that whatever exists in the space between life and death, if there is such a space, Martha finds me funny, endearing, and full of the hope that carried her through her toughest times. I’m probably a bit too raunchy for her, but I feel like she’d have a secret smile for me when no one else is looking.

I hope you’re doing well, friends.

Until next time.