Just the right moment…
Written by Rob White
Sometimes an album hits you at just the right moment in life, whether that be after a breakup, on the fall towards intimacy, or when you’re getting ready for a night out. Be it a honking great riff, pulsating rhythm section, or a chorus that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. For me Better Off’s 2019 release Reap What You Sow is one such album, it captured a feeling inside me that I couldn’t articulate and helped me better understand where I was at that moment in life.
For me this moment was a drive from my brother’s house in Reading on the way back home to Derby. I’d just had an amazing weekend spending time with my brother, exploring Reading and London, the sun was out and the pandemic looked to be easing. However, my grandad had recently passed away, and my girlfriend at the time had broken up with me, so in reality I wasn’t in the best headspace. This fusion of happiness and melancholy is the exact vibe listeners will get from Reap What You Sow, soaring euphoric highs tainted with sadness. The chorus to the title track of the album had begun just as I was at a quiet moment in my thoughts, reflecting on the weekend, and love lost. I had left Reading and was heading upwards on this beautiful road running straight through the middle of what looked like a massive forest. The road cut up into the hills, then down with no one in sight. Just tall trees in every direction. The build to the first chorus alone had me gripping the steering wheel and bracing myself for feelings, and then wham! The chorus hits like a tonne of bricks… or maybe cake? It’s sweet, that’s all I know. The rest of the album is a mixture of slower, more melancholic songs, and faster more pop inspired shout along songs. The dichotomy of those two sounds makes for quite a ride, it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time.
On first listen lyrics pass you by, the chorus, drums, and vibe hit first. However, on repeated listens the album reveals itself to be a series of emotional deconstructions. Being overly emotional myself this kind of emo always plays well to my ears, but Better Off are adults and they discuss the topics with relative maturity. In one of the verses to the opener Float Home, Luke Granered sings ‘keep my mouth shut now I always say what I know’ which sounds a bit like the reaction of a child told to stop doing whatever dumb thing they’re doing, however later in the record the chorus to the title track opens with ‘I hope you say what you know, you come back to me when you can’t stand to be alone’ – presenting both sides of a conversation. There are a few moments like this one the album lyrically, where the band invite you to remember that they are very aware of what they’re saying and potentially don’t take it literally. In fact none of the lyrics on the album depict anything close to a literal interpretation of events, something that more trite bands do all the time. That’s not to suggest that the album is a subversive art piece, I simply mean that what is discussed here doesn’t feel tangible, more like someone talking to themselves about how they feel about events without referencing what has happened. This leaves the listener to fill in the gaps with their own circumstance and emotions – of which on first listen I had many.
The album is not weighed down by the attempts at emotional honesty, it is fun, fast and packed with chorus’s that are dying to be screamed out loud. From Gig Love, to Coming Down these are songs built to make audiences dance, and I can’t count the number of times I have found myself jumping up and down in my kitchen screaming ‘you don’t have to be so cool’ to absolutely no-one. Overall, I love this album, it gave me a hug and told me I was going to be okay when I needed it most.
