In 2013, my unborn son was diagnosed with Down syndrome, and at one point, we were unsure he would even be born due to a hygroma. When his mother and I went to the ultrasound that we expected to confirm our expectations that we were having a daughter, and were instead confronted with this news, we were thrown into upheaval. I was angry that I had tried to put faith in a higher power. I was angry at being told to sit tight and wait, and I was terrified.
It was during this time that I found Touché Amoré and their record …Is Survived By. That dark summer, and the opening track “Just Exist” spoke to me deeply. I played that record and Deafheaven‘s Sunbather incessantly while my son’s mother counted kicks daily until the hygroma shrank and his likelihood of survival increased. He was born that fall and is now on the verge of becoming a teenager. I had to put both of those records away for a while, because they took me back to one of the scariest times of my life. Now, “Just Exist” is more of a reminder, one that I have inked on my left wrist.
Flash forward to 2016. I clicked on the album announcement for Touché Amoré‘s next record, Stage Four, at work. I clicked play on the first single, “Displacement”, with excitement, in need of a boost to get me through a mundane Tuesday morning. My world soon crumbled. I barely made it through the opening lines before I burst into tears: “You died at 69 / With a body full of cancer / I asked your god, ‘how could you?’ / But never got an answer.”
I lost my mother to cancer in 2010. She was 61. She was everything to me. I spoke to her every day. She rode with me through the highest highs and the darkest times. Truth be told, I have never gotten over her death, and I never will. Watching cancer destroy her body, but not her sweetness, scarred me. My heart aches for lead singer Jeremy Bolm and all of the rest of us who are part of this club. Just last year, two more friends began their cancer battles. It feels unending.
I pulled myself together enough to make it to the restroom, took some deep breaths, and went back to work, unable to fully re-engage. I was torn between wanting to hear it again and not wanting to explain to a colleague why I was sobbing at my desk. I was careful to wait to listen to Stage Four at home, by myself.
I relate intensely to Bolm’s story and lyrics, even though the details of our experiences don’t exactly align. He was onstage when his mother died, and she left him a final voicemail. For a long time, I had one last inconsequential voicemail from my mother saved on my phone, until a Verizon employee carelessly deleted it. He was onstage when his mother died, living his dream. I was by my mother’s side, at my lowest point, unemployed, broke, and planning to move back home, two different ends of a harrowing experience.
Bolm’s power as a lyricist is his inability to dance around ideas. He says what he means, and he means what he says. It works on every record, but it reaches near-unbearable heights here. Opener “Flowers and You” begins with Bolm reflecting on actions he regrets, such as giving his mother grief about not eating and about having a belief in god, realising that time spent arguing is now something he will have to live with.
In “New Halloween”, the minor details are gutting and relatable. Bolm talks about having to skip songs like Death Cab for Cutie‘s “What Sarah Said”. I know this. I have lived it. In “Benediction”, he recalls a memory of his mother helping someone, twisting the knife with the observation that the woman is likely still alive. “Posing Holy” pokes at faith’s attempts to offer meaningful explanations for loss that don’t land in grief.
“Rapture” lays bare the truth about loss in such a heartbreakingly unadorned way: “Like a wave / Like a rapture / Someone you love is gone / And leaves you fractured.” “8 Seconds” is a recollection of being on stage when his mother passed, and its spare details are haunting. “A missed call with a message attached / ‘We need to talk when you have the chance'” and “She passed away about an hour ago, / While you were onstage living the dream.” At first, Bolm describes avoiding the message as a means to avoid acknowledging his mother had passed.
There are other powerful moments of Bolm going about the business of closing out a loved one’s life. In “Palm Dreams”, as he clears out his childhood home and 40 years of memories, he ponders questions that are unanswerable now, like what prompted his mother to move to California in the first place. I know this feeling well, as I contemplated what I didn’t know about my parents while clearing out my own childhood home, with my months-old son sleeping in a carrier in my old bedroom. “Water Damage” ponders the small details, like a stain on a nightstand caused by a shaking hand holding a glass of water, or the mundanities of how a set of four coffee cups became three.
Fortunately, Touché Amoré match Bolm’s words with a collection of brilliant songs that deftly swirl together hardcore and indie rock, sprinkling in melancholy. It’s what has always made them stand out from their peers, and they are at their most powerful here. Rather than dialing it back for an introspective collection suited to mourning, these songs rage and, at times, are even anthemic.
The haunting “Skyscraper” features guest vocals from Julien Baker and flirts with shoegaze before bursting into a cathartic finish, including that final voice message. An additional song was added after the original release, “Gather”, and while it’s another great song, it doesn’t quite fit the rest of the record, even though it does thematically. I prefer the ending “Skyscraper” provides.
On the next Touché Amoré record, Lament, the highlight is “I’ll Be Your Host”, which is a follow-up to Stage Four. In it, Bolm talks about how he wasn’t prepared for the outpouring of support and stories, simultaneously honored that he’s provided some solidarity and comfort and drained by having to revisit his own grief with every conversation, (“I’m a shell of my former self / Can you tell when I’m panicking?”) and powerfully stated in the line “I’ll be your host against my will.” I admit that I wrote Bolm a tear-stained thank-you for the record and was a little upset that he didn’t respond. With “I’ll Be Your Host”, I got it. He was writing Stage Four for himself, not for me.
Stage Four is being reissued with different versions of the songs. I am curious to see how the songs feel with gentler arrangements. Touché Amoré are also embarking on a tour to celebrate the anniversary. I have often wondered how this affects Bolm. He was onstage when his mother died. I was there with mine when she passed. I can still feel that moment to my core. Is it cathartic or devastating to play these songs every night, to scream these songs of grief to crowds, knowing there must be some people in the audience who know his experience all too well? My parasocial admiration of him, built through the band’s records and his podcast The First Ever Podcast, makes me worry.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but we have music to help. Touché Amoré’s Stage Four is as raw a statement on grief as there has ever been. I still can’t listen to it without falling apart. How can he do this every night, let alone willingly put himself there? Listening to Stage Four is necessary, an act of remembrance that I can’t indulge in all the time, but that I need. If I ever do meet Jeremy Bolm, I’ll simply say thanks.