Happy Days - Cause of Death: Life
Hanging Garden was the gateway drug that led me to Happy Days. How ironic that SDBM mastermind A. Morbid is now the main man behind both projects. Fans of Hanging Garden’s 2011 LP, Goodbye Love… Hello Heartache…, concerned that Morbid was losing his Black Metal voice can rest at ease. He was apparently just “saving his best ‘riffs’ for Carcass,” if you will. It seems he had quite a bit saved up, as Cause of Death: Life is a colossal double album, and to keep us consistently puzzled, the two discs are radically different from one another. Disc One is the Happy Days I know and love. Hopelessly bleak Black Metal —owing much to the raw, repetitive simplicity of Burzum and Darkthrone— with enough Shoegaze tint to ensure maximum depression. This duo (rounded out by Karmageddon on drums) have come such a long way from their early output to where they are now. The sound quality and playing ability continually improve with each release, nowhere is that more evident than on Disc One’s re-recorded oldies (“Alone and Cold” from the ‘07 demo of the same name and “No Point in Living” from the ‘07 A World of Pain demo) which sound leagues better than the somewhat unbearable original recordings. Even the new version of “Take Me Away” is far superior to the one found on 2009’s Happiness Stops Here LP (considered by many to be their breakthrough opus). Lyrically, shit doesn’t get much realer: “Now my days are fading every time I blink / Hoping that my end will soon arrive / I don’t belong here, I need to die / Happiness doesn’t last, depression and Negativity will always triumph.” I’m sorry, but every other BM band’s lyric sheet just turned into Sesame Street dialogue. Unfortunately Disc Two is depressing for the wrong reasons. The song titles, lyrics, and vibe are unmistakably Happy Days, but something about the delivery is strikingly less poignant. The vocals are carelessly shouted, yelled, or just plain spoken, and while a few heartbroken melodies remain, the music just feels alarmingly off. Often grating and consistently unmemorable, it’s a noisy, sloppy step backwards for them. I sincerely hope that Disc One isn’t some kind of farewell to the Happy Days standard I adore, with Disc Two being a precursor of things to come, because without Disc Two this is probably a 10.
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