by Aly Muilenburg (@purityolympics)
Emptiness is constant, it’s overwhelming, it’s all-consuming. It’s an infinite space, simultaneously expanding outward and contracting inward, but it isn’t nothingness. The worst instincts of our brains lead us to this nihilistic conclusion; our eyes reveal its true value. On Goodbye, Nowhere!, the sophomore record from Minneapolis’ Double Grave, emptiness faces a reckoning.
The trio – Jeremy Warden (guitars/vocals), Bree Meyer (bass), and Seth Tracy (drums/production) – has been working towards Goodbye, Nowhere! for nearly half a decade, starting as Ego Death and evolving into Double Grave. Each subsequent release has brought them closer to perfecting their form of existential shoegaze. Their goal is to swallow you in reverb and bury you in feedback.
Warden’s lyrics have always depicted the different ways in which we become untethered – from ourselves, from our loved ones, from time itself. They’re full of questions and desires, none of which are answered or fulfilled. “Deadend,” off of 2018’s fantastic Empty Hands EP, is the best precursor to Goodbye, Nowhere!’s uncertainty, even down to its farewell (“Say goodbye to what I’m working for”). Now, those sentiments have been presented in an album-length format.
Opener “Out Here” gently nudges into the familiar universe of Double Grave. A light wind chime evokes the open sky of the cover art. Immediately, desperation for connection through any means shows itself, even something as visceral as putting your hand around another’s throat, just to make sure that you’re both still breathing. Something as seemingly trivial has the capacity to bring at least a tiny bit of peace. Throughout the record, Warden searches for reassurance, no matter how small.
Double Grave follows up that slightness with something drastic yet simple on lead single “The Farm.” If there was a quintessential song to showcase all the band can do, this would be the one – it’s the lead single for a reason. Warden doesn’t need much to create vast expanses of gorgeous guitar texture. With a few strums, he locks in with Meyer and Tracy’s eternally stellar rhythm section and creates a world of tone you could live inside. Despite the relatively effortless delivery, the vocals infuse an implacable yearning into lines about getting away from the oppressiveness of daily life and discovering what is lacking. Instead of being just a highlight on the record (though it certainly is), “The Farm” sets a high bar for Goodbye, Nowhere! On every subsequent song, Double Grave either meets or exceeds their own standard of excellence.
The realization that fleeing out into the country to live on a farm won’t bring peace is illustrated on the next songs: “Whatever” and “NNN.” The former stares crushing depression in the eyes and finds some solace in action; its propulsive beat, featuring my favorite bass part on the record, seems to be what gives Warden the energy to stop “waiting / for things to change.” The latter (“NNN” stands for “nothing, no one, nowhere”) is a familiar battle between what you know is better (“gotta get up, gotta go out, gotta be good to myself”) and laying here, unable to forget the world or your tiny place within it.
There aren’t many other moments that show a way out of the darkness. Goodbye, Nowhere! is primarily an unflinching look inward at a well of blackened pain. The record closes with “Too Late,” an understated acceptance of fate. Warden is a “ghost with a sad little song,” realizing the impossibility of existence within the void. Nihilism creeps out of the album’s crevasses, especially here. However, that realization contains an implicit response – instead of staying where you are, you have to move. “Long Drive Home” spells out the difficulty and necessity of that acceptance in frank terms. Warden sings, “I’m not here for a long time / gotta keep an open mind…I know it’s meant to be / but it’s still hard to open your heart.”
There aren’t answers to be found on Goodbye, Nowhere! Rather than misleading with false solutions, Double Grave demonstrates the necessity of questioning, of facing that uncertainty head-on. Emptiness isn’t permanent – it’s merely a stop along the way. All you have to do is bid it farewell and discover where you’re going next.