Ten years ago, this day, Oceana’s Birth.Eater came out.
I wanted to write a far more in depth blog about it but life happens…
I’ll say it just off the cuff.
It’s cliche to say music saved my life or changed me. Birth.Eater did change me forever.
The tone of my guitar I’d prefer to sound heavy like theirs.
The lyrics changed my opinion about abortion.
Brennan Taulbee, vocalist and guitarist, wrote about almost being aborted before birth.
The album takes the child, the father, the mother, and everyone’s perspective of abortion.
It was really daring to be like hey I was almost aborted and have not just a black and white opinion on the matter.
My view is similar to Brennan’s. It’s for that individual to choose. It’s not my choice. It’s not the government’s.
No one but the individual baring the child should decide.
Do I like the idea of abortion? No I don’t. I’m never going to make that choice, thank goodness.
The album came at a point in my life where I needed more challenging and truly sophisticated heavy music.
Birth.Eater is still some of the most unsettling music I’ve ever heard and the most unique album of the last decade in my opinion, but like their song “I Came As Dust (I Left As Dust)” they came and went as Oceana under Brennan and now are Polyenso.
But that span of Brennan and Oceana, add their Clean Head EP as well, is one of my favorite periods of music.
They took the influence of Underoath and pushed it in the ambitious direction.
There’s obviously a lot of Christian influence along with a lot of doubt and scrutiny.
I’ve had my own struggles with that. I am an atheist but I wasn’t always.
Sometimes I still feel a connection with my spirituality.
Oceana’s guitar tone, crazy as it sounds, remind me of wholly serenity. The good and the bad. The anguish and love.
“I Came As Dust (I Left As Dust)” in sound and words echoes my exodus from faith. My lament for god.
“Mother Love” cuts like a shark’s teeth. A different kind aggression takes over me when I play that riff on my guitar.
From tone to lyrics, it’s an aimless discord with the world.
“Boa” rattles with such a loose elastic riffing verse and bares one of the great breakdowns without much chugging or reliance detuned guitars.
Taulbee’s cigarette rasped screams fill the space perfectly. Doesn’t need any help. It’s dark and powerful alone.
The message of the entire album is perfectly encapsulated in that moment of Brennan screaming into the abyss alone.
“In Birth” out of all the tracks still stands above the rest. Brennan’s mumbling and quite vocals resonate equally to the profoundly unnerving lyrics.
I’d never heard someone say the things uttered in that song.
How does almost never being born affect someone? This album is your answer.
There’s so much to say about Birth.Eater. Maybe someday but clearly it had such an impact on me. I love it more now than I did then.
With everything going on in America today with abortion Birth.Eater sounds more relevant now than its release ten years ago.
Disaesthetic 