Vida Blue by Mamaleek

In our wishful thinking, we deceive ourselves, seeing grief as a transitory state and inventing contrived concepts like “prolonged grief disorder” to compartmentalize and pathologize this supposedly irregular state. After the loss of a dear friend and bandmate, Mamaleek set out on the spiritual journey behind Vida Blue, a genreless album that pulls from black metal, no wave, post punk, and post rock to construct a grand shrine to loss itself. Watching in wide-eyed horror as time barrels down its destructive path, Mamaleek identifies grief as the natural reaction to the experience of time, proclaiming loss as the most fundamental essence of life. Key musical moments highlight this epiphany, coalescing warm, freeform instrumental landscapes into focused crescendos topped with rambling, screaming vocals that reflect our distress at the magnitude of these truths. If to live is to lose, then loss enables all experience, imbues all memory with meaning, supports our highest highs, dredges our deepest lows, fills our lungs with air, pumps our hearts with blood, and accompanies us from our first breath to our last.