‘…the sound of desperately hoping that if one was just held tight enough, all of our pieces may fuse back together…’
You cannot love another before you love yourself.
Minnesota’s Careful Gaze have been honing their craft, under various guises, for over a decade now; emerging as Hunter Dumped Us Here back in 2014 before transforming in 2018, the post-hardcore band have released music every year since then, including two full-length records. 2022’s sophomore effort ‘WRATH LIKE FLOWERS UPON MY BROW’ made for an incredible emo crossover record that grappled with religious guilt, suicidal ideation, and loving as hard as possible.
Since then, Careful Gaze has been a project in flux. The departures of Preston West and Ben Tosel saw the band reduced to a three-piece, although the band appeared to take this in their stride; experimenting with lo-fi pop, ambient, drum & bass, and rap metal across the span of these past four years, the anticipation for what was yet to come only seemed to increase exponentially in magnitude. Now, a five-piece once more thanks to drummer Lars Oslund and guitarist Cody Jones, the long wait for Careful Gaze LP3 is at an end.
Described by the band as “a collection of love songs”, it would be easy to assume that ‘IT DOES NOT SLEEP’ would be Careful Gaze’s softest and perhaps even most accessible record yet, especially last year’s electronic EP, ‘one day this will let you go’. That, however, could not be further from the truth; across the span of these ten tracks, Careful Gaze push themselves towards their darkest, heaviest extremes to date, flirting with ideas from mathcore, screamo and black gaze.
The resulting experience is viscerally vulnerable and, at times, crushingly torturous, as vocalist Gabriel Reasoner reconciles loving somebody and in turn receiving their love, despite feeling wholly undeserving of such things in a most utterly consuming, destructive manner. This is the sound of Reasoner tearing at their skin, hoping that the blood lost can be replaced with love, and wondering what will leave first; their love, or their life.
That blinding darkness is on display from the record’s very commencement, ‘PERCY’ sounding as much a herald of the immediate apocalypse as it does an introductory piece for the album. Haunting, violent, and terrifyingly imposing, it blows open the record with the heaviest sounds that this band have ever produced, serving as both a fully-fledged hardcore influenced rager, and a prologue for the narrative that Careful Gaze aim to unfurl before you.
Follow-up track ‘IT DOES NOT SLEEP’ ebbs and flows between lustrous cinematic soundscapes and crushing post-hardcore segments. Reasoner is pleading for abandonment here, entrenched in the belief that their irrepressible misery is only deserving of further isolation (‘It’s gonna be more trouble/Than it’s worth’). Allusions to suicidal ideation are made as Reasoner admits to their lack of will to keep going, whilst also personifying themselves as a weight too heavy to carry for long; it is a crushingly honest listen that resonates with painful truth for those who have lived through severe depression.
Whilst the expansiveness and experimentation of Careful Gaze’s new record wholly deserve commendation, it is tracks such as the direct post-hardcore rager ‘SHALLOWS’ that illustrates the strength of individual performances best, especially those of the band’s newcomers; Oslund’s percussion rips about you with the frenzy of a wildfire, as Reasoner desperately claws their way back from the abyss. The breakdown is phenomenal work, as Jones and Bailey Sullivan offer an oscillating onslaught of weighty chugs and screeches, whilst Reasoner pleads that, even if he is to succumb to their suicidal ideation, they will be remembered for the fight they put up (‘If I can’t get out from under this/I need to know that you saw me try/I need to know that you’ll think of me/Paint my name on the winter sky’).
Where ‘PERCY’ served as a pseudo-intro piece, ‘LAST BLOOD’ and ‘HEAVEN’S GATE’ operate as pseudo-interludes within the overarching concept of this record; all three tracks see Careful Gaze at their heaviest, wielding a hardcore approach to their cinematic sound, and bookending the vulnerable rumination of this record with moments of embittered aggression. ‘HEAVEN’S GATE’ particularly shines bright thanks to its torrential climax that borrows ideas from blackgaze to produce a terrifying, spiralling ascension of frenzied noise; Oslund’s percussive work once again demands high praise.
It is the record’s climax, however, where this already incredible project ascends to a truly transformational level. ‘CERULEAN’ sees the band leaning gently into gothic ideas, with a pulsing electronic backdrop and moody percussion sprawling outwards beneath Reasoner’s hushed, understated vocals, questioning as to whether they were always destined to be this way (Holy artist in the dreams I feared/Please make me into something sheer/Please portray me as a stained glass angel/Omnipresent eyes affixed with tears). The track vaults into a crushing emotional onslaught at the midsection, juggernaut guitar chugs adorned with desperate vocal screams that rage with emotion.
‘CERULEAN’ flows seamlessly into the minimalist wonder of ‘MARY’, featuring a stunning guest vocal appearance from Elliot Smith, and ethereal drone work from NELSDOT. Reasoner and Smith’s vocals meld together with a remarkably divine sentiment, gently spilling forth as if from an old, crackling radio, sat beneath NELSDOT’s haunting ambience and the sound of pouring rain. It is the sound of accepting that, sometimes, love is simply not enough, or perhaps instead that sometimes the ultimate act of love is to let go.
NELSDOT’s droning ambience continues to echo as the record moves into its final act, with the incredible closing number ‘SALEM’. Everything that ‘IT DOES NOT SLEEP’ had splayed out before the listener comes rushing back together in a supernovae of a conclusion, as Reasoner offers one final, beautiful, gut-wrenching surrender. Towering screams rage atop of an inferno of an instrumental, building as the church of Reasoner’s love burns to the ground; then, as Reasoner bellows ‘The sound you made/Sent my brain/Straight through the back of my skull’, it all comes collapsing down.
In the record’s dying moments, Reasoner asks repeatedly ‘Did you take all of my hurt away?’, before the track resolves with ‘Did you take all of my hurt?’, self-combusting with crushing distortion. It is hard not to read this as Reasoner questioning as to whether they have but poured their pain into somebody’s else’s cup; relief and guilt ambiguously intertwined in an acknowledgment that, like ripples on a pond, our emotions do not simply cease to exist when they leave our body.
You cannot love another before you love yourself, but to say we have a choice in who and how hard we love would be a lie; sometimes it is love that we crawl towards on our stomachs, raking skin over gravel, in some hope that the suffering can be replaced with sunlight. To think that love ends simply at the death of a relationship, romantic, platonic, familial or otherwise, is foolish; sometimes the greatest act of love is to let go.
‘IT DOES NOT SLEEP’ is a remarkable experience to behold from start to finish, an ode to clawing our way through one more day, just one more day, with love as our guiding light. It is the sound of desperately hoping that if one was just held tight enough, all of our pieces may fuse back together; it is also the sound of guilt, from the blood those sharp fragments draw. Our grief does not sleep, but nor does hope.
It may have taken four years for Careful Gaze to have arrived at this point, but the patience has more than sufficiently paid off; this is their magnum opus.
RATING: 98/100
For Fans Of: State Faults, Bleached Cross, Casey, Static Dress, The Callous Daoboys
Physical copies of the record can be purchased from here.
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