BAD CRY LOUD, the debut full length album from DIV3R, is a term coined by the Las Vegas band as a way to describe a more morbid version of the “ugly cry” — that visceral physical reaction to the worst news that results in uncontrollable facial expressions. However, “bad cry loud” is pure primal, abject suffering, the human condition reaching its lowest point — one from which there’s often no return.
While this album might be about wanting oblivion, by its very existence it rages against the dying of the light. And while it’s very much rooted in the travails and tribulations of life (or the wish for its opposite), its songs are also set in alternate dimensions — places that vocalist/guitarist Jason Weiche actually experienced through some extremely intense encounters that he’s had with plant medicine, something he says has helped (and continues to help) him come to terms with his morbid desires.
This is very much captured in the music — the otherworldly atmospheres of opening one-two gambit “Sober” and the frenzied space-time vortex of “Wrung”, the freewheeling, careening fist single “1047 AD” and the electrifying, high-octane nihilism of “Metroid” with its urgent, desperate screams of ‘Dance with death/Dance with nothing.’ All of them are complex yet visceral songs that tap into that human condition — even if they’re set elsewhere, the emotions they convey are very real, very human, very honest. Take, for instance, “Neue Neptune” or “Luna”. While the latter is one of the few more tender, vulnerable songs of the 12 here, it still feels like a communiqué from another plane of existence, a swathe, a rush, a jolt of pure feeling that, like the rest of these songs, is dark and heavy, full of the burden both of being human, and just being.
BAD CRY LOUD serves as an act of resistance to a host of demons. For Weiche, it also serves as something of a redemption arc, a return — after a near-decade break — to fully immersing himself in what he loves and what makes him complete.
“In 2015, I left Stolas,” he says. “I had this crazy relationship that took me away from friends and family, and really threw me into the dark. Carlo and I didn't talk for a while, and we didn't write music for several years. Coming back to that was how DIV3R was born. Something was just missing in my life, and this is totally what it was.”
DIV3R will be making the following appearances in October. Details below.
OCTOBER
09 — Springfield, MO — The Regency Live ^
16 — Las Vegas, NV — The Griffin *
^ — supporting Hail The Sun
* — supporting Shiner
