“Tides” by As Cities Burn, Sunday, May 5, 2024
In 2005, As Cities Burn released their intense post-hardcore debut, Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest. The record was recorded with legendary producer Matt Goldman, former Norma Jean frontman, and then-frontman of The Chariot, Josh Scogin. The band gained acclaim after the album’s Solid State release and their touring. After touring for a year, in 2006, the band announced that they would break up, but they decided to stay together after seeing the fans’ disappointment at the announcement. The band continued touring, though their bassist Pascal Barone left the band and Robert Chisolm of Jonezetta joined the tour to finish up before the band headed to the studio to record their sophomore album, Come Now Sleep.
NOT ESTRANGED TO REGRET. The stylistic differences between Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest and Come Now Sleep shocked listeners. The band’s leader TJ Bonnette had departed to spend more time with his wife. The touring lifestyle had been incompatible with his marriage. Without a lead “screamer,” the band turned to guitarist/clean vocalist, TJ’s younger brother Cody to front the band. Fans were shocked by the change in the band’s style and lack of screaming, but the band was able to take their fanbase on their new path. In retrospective reviews and discourse, Come Now Sleep carried fans through the band’s stylistic change and even brought new fans of a more alternative rock and less grating vocal style than TJ’s at times shrill scream. Come Now Sleep had only a clean vocalist, but it replaced the harsh vocals with lyrical intensity, which made the album not only distinct from their first album but from every other Christian Rock album released in its era.
LEAVE YOUR BAD LIMBS BEHIND. None of the songs on Come Now Sleep sound like Christian Rock songs. Every song is encapsulated with honesty and doubt. The ethereal opener “Contact” questions whether the speaker hears the voice of God or if it’s “really my own [voice] / Bouncing off the ceiling back to me.” The lead single “Empire” is maybe the most Christian radio ready, though it deals with self- righteousness and the conundrum of those who grow up “good” in the church. Few songs in the Christian Rock cannon explore this perspective in earnest. “The Hoard” talks about grace and the “good boys who keep their livers clean / And smoke out of their lungs.” The other album tracks work between a dichotomy of ambient musings and hard rock heart-wrenchers before ending on the nearly 13-minute closer, “Timothy,” a song about the suicide of the band’s friend Timothy Jordan II, a touring member of The All-American Rejects and the keyboardist for Jonezetta before their debut popularity. Today’s song “Tides,” along with the album’s preceding track “New Sun,” has more of the rock formula but includes ambient guitar elements. It’s one of the least lyrically accessible tracks on the album. Whereas many of the other tracks are mostly about boys and the “sins of the flesh” pulling boys away from the church, “Tides” and “New Sun” are much more metaphorical. In “New Sun,” the lady is either dead or a symbol for sex. In “New Sun,” the speaker claims: “soon she’ll be my new sun,” and in “Tides,” he claims: “she’s now my new sun.” But as “Tides” goes on, the speaker states: “Automated exchanges make us not lovers / But feigners, we are only strangers.” Whereas whoever this woman is is interpreted as the “sun,” the moon in the song is not defined, though the song is more about the moon than the sun as the song is called “Tides.” The song ends with the speaker saying: “leave your bad limbs behind / For they are conduits . . . To our hearts.” When Josh Taylor, a reviewer of JesusFreaks Hideout.com gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, he admitted: “Honestly, I'm fairly hesitant to say much of anything final about the lyrical content of Come Now Sleep because, in the same way that Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest rewarded you with repeated listens, Come Now Sleep deepens in meaning and substance with each and every listen.” I must admit that, while I’ve sat with the more sardonic, straightforward songs on the album, the pair of “New Sun” and “Tides” still have an obscured meaning to me. Maybe I have to sleep on it.
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