A review by codalion
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

5.0

I opened up my eyes, and I wondered whether my younger self was actually somebody who's still inside me at all--maybe the person who wakes up sometimes isn't really like the younger person at all. Maybe that younger person died when he became this older person, and now when I think I'm feeling his emotions and sharing his rage, I'm really just mourning his death. If that's true, I don't know how I can stand it. I'm 26, but I'm not ready for my 16-year-old self to be dead.

I think hardly anybody in those places really knew what was going on out on the unit. The nurses stayed in the office or ran groups, and you guys had your sessions, but we lived in our rooms and in the classes and the hallways. So, it might surprise you when I tell you that the main thing we all thought and talked about, amongst ourselves when you weren't listening, was death. Everybody talked about death all the time. It didn't scare us. We knew you were all terrified that something was going to happen to us and you'd have to pay for it, and that gave us power. If one kid with enough charisma had floated the idea past us, I'm sure we would have all killed ourselves on the same day just to spite you all.

John Darnielle's work is like a thready signal from another planet somewhere out there in the galaxy, letting me know there's life in the universe. I feel this way about Wolf in White Van and also a lot of his musical work. But Master of Reality might be my favorite now--I guess apart from "Cry For Judas"--because it is a grand, holy gesture of compassion for oneself and for every other fuckup, a beacon for every miserable lonely alienated piece of shit in the world, and a middle finger to a social world of relentless performativity and irony. But that's not really what it is, that last thing, because expressing anger--being okay with anger--is not the same as focusing on hating somebody else. That makes it about them, right? And this kind of thing isn't about them, it's about us.

Also, it is wonderful music criticism! Master of Reality is also an unapologetic demonstration of earnest investment in music, in talking about music and the way words and sound interact, the way listeners construct their own images and stories, the very strange synaesthetic experience of loving art.

People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.

Black Sabbath was never my Black Sabbath when I was a teenager--that was Metallica, probably, and many other things; some haunted acoustic folk and some hard rock; though I've always felt burnt by the acid disregard of those who think, or seem to think, that suffering is acceptable packaged elegantly but not loudly, noisily, coarsely. That's something I've always appreciated about good old JD. He doesn't just talk to the kinds of people who self-select to listen to, well, JD.

Anyway, I'm glad I've embarked upon looking into 33 1/3 and I have a little trepidation about how the writers who are actually addressing my favorite albums will measure up! I also have an ambition of writing one of these about Different Class someday.

But, more than anything, I feel a little better.

There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year. Thank you, John Darnielle.