Everything is transitory. Everything temporary. Change, the only constant. Permanent flux.
A waffling between extremes, between antipodes, between hots and colds, between fast and slow, between high and low. A transition state. Without firm borders. One of blurred degrees. Everything mixed, entangled, indistinct. Liminal. Neither here, nor there. Neither come, nor gone. Neither right, nor wrong. Neither awake, nor asleep. Neither dead, nor alive. Neither truth, nor lie. Neither literal, nor figurative. Neither forgotten, nor remembered. Neither beginning, nor end. Neither within, nor without. Neither past, nor future. Present but for a moment. Its solidity a mirage. A long-lasting ephemerality. Dream-like.
On their previous release, Fog/Out of Mind, Higherlows sang “Wake me, I’m dreaming.” And, although Transition State showcases a faster, more determined pop-punk, the band remains focused on this sense of an ever-morphing intangibility, for on Transition State’s Wake, they sing “Am I dreaming?” The fog, it seems, has yet to burn off; the obsession with absolutes, with the shedding of uncertainties, is still tightly held.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
