Album Review: American Opera Try To Rejoice In Life’s “Small Victories”
Incremental progress. Monumental setbacks. Small victories. This is the story of American Opera. Brooklyn Based musician John Bee found himself in an emotional crossroad after 8 years of being a non-stop touring musician stopped, and he was left alone, in a van, wondering, “What is the point of “everything?”. We, human beings, work hard, dream big, and open our hearts only to find ourselves in moments like John’s; miserable and failed. American Opera’s new album, Small Victories, is the tale of rediscovering life after another failure has made you confront how you are living.
I am convinced that it is not dreaming that is wrong, but how we dream and approach making it a reality that is “off”. You will always hear in life someone say, “Get your head out of the clouds” and “ Be realistic”, but our imagination and envisioned goals are more than mindful hopes; they are survival mechanisms. We believe what we see, and our dreams are beliefs we push to be seen by both ourselves and all. American Opera sing to dreaming again after being crushed. Hence, they use fast-paced stringed arrangements such as, “Sand & Seed”, “Monsters Amongst Men”, and “Jack Pine” to embody the brain clash between old anxieties and new hopes. Starting to believe again that you can make your visions into realities can feels like an emotional storm has brewed within you, in part, because losing jades people. Thus, Bee becomes the voice of a hardened man trying to feel love and faith again in tracks, “Small Victories”, “Sidewalks”, and “Songs I Used To Sing”. His voice smashes pain and pleasure to create a natural sense of instability; he can cut his vocals to sound chopped by hurt, and then he balms them with a sweet tone that is almost medicinal. How humanity is its own cure and disease has fascinated philosophers, but John Bee does not sing to those theorizing life…. he sings to those like you; trying to live it.
Although American Opera is folk rock they pay their instruments like hard rock. They bash their strings rather than pluck, and punch their drums rather than tap. Still, the folkish nature of their sound comes in their arrangements and lyrical subject matters. Thus, the aggression of their play furthers the emotional intensity of their themes. Loneliness, abandonment, and hopelessness are persistent feelings for being, technically, weak ones. Therefore, Bee sings to the human fight we all must endure to shake our weakness, and let ourselves dream again. For More Information On American Opera And To Buy Small Victories Click Here.
