“Ace and I have been in the band from the jump,” says Kummer, “so I know every single song we’ve ever recorded, as well as all these deep cut songs fans have loved along the way that never got to shine. And now they get to come to life in this re-recorded form. And then there’s new stuff that people have never heard, so it’s the best of both worlds. To go back to those older songs some 20 years later and think about where you were as a kid, we honestly feltlike kids doing it all over again. Because that excitement just comes right back when you’re working on something that was like so innocent and fresh, because you were starting a band that you knew had something and you really believed in.”
“The older songs,” adds Enders, “were all me learning how to become human in some kind of way, so looking back and reconnecting with that person, it was like, ‘I kind of remember that guy!’Like, I remember who I was and I remember the mindset, and I really enjoyed connecting back to that part of myself. As a songwriter, I write for a lot of other people and I put a bunch of different hats on and put myself in abunch of different positions, but I’ve never really put myself back in my past position. And it was really cool to do that,and to see and relearn who I was and where I came from.”
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a collection of old songs madenew, though. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both Enders and Kummer made the decision that they wanted Twenty to play and flow like any other studio record from front to back, and they spent a significant amount of time ensuring that that would be the case.
“The whole process pretty much took a year,” explains Enders. “Jeff and I got together and narrowed down from 20 or 30 songs the 10 that we ended up running with, which were the ones that we connected to the most, and which we still connect to. For the first couple days we just sat there and went through what would and wouldn’t make sense, and then we started slowly tracking drums, tracking guitars, tracking drums. We tracked everything once, and then over time as the form of it was changing, Iwanted to like glue everything together, so I actually ended up re-singing and re-recording all the guitars and everything and re-editing everything.”
The result is a record that truly captures the essence and spirit of The Early November, even if, because of pandemic logistics, the other members –Joseph Marro (keyboards/guitars), Bill Lugg (lead guitar) and Sergio Anello (bass) –aren’t present on this recording. Nevertheless, Twenty gives an overview of who theband wereback then and who they are now, as well as the distance between those two things. It begins with “Trees”, a brand new song,but one that sounds like it could easily have been written for either For All This or 2003’s debut full-length, The Room’s Too Cold. Sad, lonely and haunted, it’s agraceful, gentle acoustic song, a hushed lament for lost youththat sounds like the best summer day you never had but stilldream about. It’s a sublime opener –just Enders, his guitar and his ghosts –and the perfect prelude for what follows. Immediately, that’s two songs that were initially written around the same time as The Room’s Too Cold –the coruscating, catchy emotional waves of “Make It Happen” and the angular undulations of “Denent”. Both possess a youthful vitality that matches theperiodin whichthey were written, but they’re also imbued with the wisdom gainedwith time and perspective. It would have been easy for these songs especially to sound disingenuous, but they come off as authentic, intentional and heartfelt as ever.
The fact those three songs flow together so well, or that the wistful, romantic, nervous rush of “Five Years” –written around the time of 2006’s epic second album, The Mother, The Mechanic, And The Path –bleedseffortlesslyinto the bruised, sad strains of new song “The Sand”, demonstrate how past and present dissolve into one across the span of this album. Indeed, it’sas if the whole world disappears, leaving youbeneath a vast canopy of stars, in awe of the scaleand spectacle of the night, the stars, the universe, staring wide-eyed into infinity. That you feel the same way listening tothe final two tracks –“Pretty” and “Open Eyes”, both of which were written around the time of For All This –demonstrates just how sophisticatedand vitalEarly Novembersongs always were. Though imbued with a youthful, hopeful romanticism, both those songscould easily have been written now. In other words, hearing an older Enders channel his younger self only makes them more potent, more compelling, more complete.There is no distinction between then and now –like us, there is only the moment these songs are alive, and then the deafening silence when they end.
“I think being an artist of any type,” says Enders, “means you can probably find the darker places within your mind. So now, being able to do these songs –even if I wrote them 15 years ago –and use them as an outlet in the way they should have been used back then, is wonderful. I’m able to revisit and say ‘Oh–I actually am alright. I actually diddo something cool,and now it’s an outlet for me to heal in the same way that I would have used it then, even if I wasn’t able to use it for that. Listening to this album as a whole and realizing how consistent we’ve been all this timereally filled me with a lotof pride.”
“The result,” adds Kummer, “was that something really rejuvenated in us. I know me and Ace will never end it, but it felt like we were at a crossroads, like ‘Do we have to throw in the towel now?’We were just low. But we got each other reallyramped up doing this because we just hit the ground running. And when we were finishing it, we really started believing in ourselves again. I don’t know if that has to do with kind of taking a time machine back to your younger self, but I’m sure some of that energy and hopefulness and just pure fun and love for the game comes into play.I listen to this record still and I get so excited about it. And that’s an incredible feeling."
For their debut album, the seven members of CLIFFDIVER wanted to make a record that really represented who they were. That’s because, although the band have previously released two EPs – 2018’s Small Hours and the following year’s At Your Own Risk – Exercise Your Demons is the first record they’ve made that features what they now consider to be their final line-up, following the permanent addition of vocalist of Briana Wright. Already an outfit that was both proudly genre-defying and unashamedly emo, after Wright appeared on their 2020 single “Gas City”, they knew she had to join the band properly.
“This is the first recording that really captures us,” says co-vocalist Joey Duffy. “It was a cool opportunity to change, reinvent and just get weird with it.”
“We definitely haven’t painted ourselves into a corner musically,” says Wright, “but we also wanted to establish that we’re an authority on emo – especially for me, from a representative standpoint.”
Produced by Seth Henderson and mastered by Will Yip, the result is a record that not only captures the musical essence of the band – completed by guitarists/vocalists Matt Ehler and Gilbert Erickson, bassist Tyler Rogers, saxophonist Dony Nickles and drummer Eliot Cooper – but which also builds off their homegrown success. That’s something which has seen them share stages with K. Flay in Tulsa and the likes of Hot Water Music, The Wonder Years, Spanish Love Songs and more at last year’s iteration of Fest, as well as get airplay on Tulsa’s esteemed radio station 104.5 The Edge and sign with SideOneDummy Records. They’ve also played a lot of disc golf.
A deep exploration of grief inspired by a recurring dream Duffy had about a late ex-fiancée, the nine songs that comprise Exercise Your Demons fling the door wide open musically for the band while also making important statements about mental health. Both Duffy and Wright have survived suicide attempts in the past, and they want this record to offer hope and strength to anyone who hears it. It is, by its very existence, a testament to what happens if you don’t let your demons win.
“Neither of us should be here,” admits Duffy, who was diagnosed as bi-polar at 25, and who recently celebrated nine months of sobriety, “We know what it’s like to be alone with the thought that the world would be better without you, and we’re proof that it can get better. You, too, are resilient. The things that were breaking you a year ago aren’t breaking you now.”
At the same time as pushing the importance of resilience in the face of adversity, the album is also a much-needed reminder that life is still beautiful and worthwhile – and always is.
“We feel that responsibility as people who have been there,” says Wright. “So we’ll sit in the mud with you and talk about it, and we hope our little bit of courage can explode to something that’s bigger than us. Because it’s not about us, it’s about what we’re talking about and the connection that we call the fabric, because it creates strength. We’re just trying to make a bigger net to catch more people.”
CLIFFDIVER is: Joey Duffy (Vocals), Matt Ehler (Guitar/Vocals), Briana Wright (Vocals), Gilbert Erickson (Guitar/Vocals), Tyler Rogers (Bass), Dony Nickles (Saxophone), and Eliot Cooper (Drums).