“Anything” by Mae, Friday, January 20, 2023
While Mae has emphasized that they "are not a Christian band," the second full-length original record, The Everglow, on Tooth & Nail debuted atop Billboard's Christian albums charts in 2005. For many Mae fans, The Everglow is the album on which the band best demonstrates their vision of being a Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience, engaging listeners with artwork accompanying the album as a "read along booklet." The album's "Prologue" invites listeners to view the album artwork insert in a similar way that children may listen to books on tape from the library.
LOVE, IT'S THE WAVE I RIDE THAT WON'T EVER REACH THE SHORE. Musically, Mae treats listeners to sappy melodies that bring us along on a range of sad-to-happy emotions on The Everglow. The album starts a little slow with the piano-vocal composition "We're So Far Away," which feels a bit Broadway for the Virginia Beach-based band. But then The Everglow turns into a rock record, with the guitar-based track "Someone Else's Arms," which is closest the album comes to sounding angry. But little by little over the course of their faster rock tracks, Mae embeds a wistful nostalgia into their guitar riffs and lyrics. But just as the album starts to feel like it's just a variation on the last track, track 5, "The Ocean," brings back the piano as the primary instrument. The middle is full of singable melodies, but nothing matches track five until the album's penultimate track, "Anything." The song pulls out all stops with a catchy guitar riff and bells in the chorus similar to the anthemic sounds of a Christmas song. What also makes "Anything" standout on the album is that it feels like the first time that singer Dave Elkins actually believes the inspiration message he's been trying to sell himself on throughout the album. It's a song about regaining confidence after a season of self doubt.
THE ROPE GETS LOOSE AND THE CHAINS UNBIND. "Anything" is a song about the dichotomy of looking homeward versus looking forward. It's a dichotomy I've explored in my personal life and in my blog. The pandemic had many of us succumbing unapologetically to nostalgia for our childhoods. But recently, I've started getting out more and as I've gotten out I've realized that there are still many more days of my youth to gather memories for when I'm old and cannot physically go out and make new memories. I'm no longer a middle school student stuck indoors on rainy days reading reading some mystery in the sands of Luxor, Egypt, head propped up by my Marill plush toy. I am a regent of a kingdom waiting for the prince to come of age to replace me. I better order the ironclad warships to attack a far off land while I still have the power to do so before prince old age banishes me to life of writing, living vicariously through the characters I can create. Life really isn't as limiting as I thought it was even before the pandemic.
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