In This Moment: Ritual Track-By-Track Album Review [With Pictures]
“Shame says that because I am flawed, I am unacceptable. Grace says that though I am flawed, I am cherished.” - Abigail Williams: The Crucible, Arthur Miller
All begin to gather around a huge bonfire in the dead of night, decked out to the nines in appropriate attire for the onset of a demonic religious ceremony. Witch drums build to an overpowering bone-chilling crescendo as chants bellow in the background, and you know what is about to take place. Here we have an introductory track which is very stereotypically In This Moment. They firmly believe in taking people on a journey, and it is why they always go to great pains to create a story within the music with each album. This album is no exception as they once again begin the album with a track that crescendos and builds tension and generates excitement for what is to come. The ritual begins here.
The concept of good and evil is explored heavily on this album, and here is where that story begins. The crux of this song is someone exploring the depths of their own psyche, fighting an internal battle with their dark and light sides. And, in a way, this person feels ashamed of being flawed, feeling as if they must be purified in some way to rid themselves of this shame. It asks the all-brooding question, “Am I Lilith or am I Eve?” which, in my opinion, is the heart of the song and is the question that is explored throughout the entire track. Who am I really? Am I the good person that I know myself to be, or am I really as evil as others think I am?
It’s a nice night for a black wedding. A priest and a nun come together in the wee hours of the night to confess their sins to one another. There is indiscretion afoot on both sides of the booth. This song mirrors that of a Catholic confessional, given its back and forth style of vocalizing with the one and only Rob Halford of Judas Priest. This is one of my favorite tracks on the album, simply because of the imagery attached to it. From my perspective, it’s about the whole concept of star-crossed lovers; people who initially could have been good for each other, but ultimately were destined to be ripped apart. With its whimsical piano introduction and poppy chorus, it is destined to be single material at some point. The vocal interstitial at the end of the song of the recited bible verse really fits in well with the theme of the album and helps stitch together the theme with ease.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight. The light voices on the wind signal what is about to happen. Here we have a very haunting and melancholic rendition of Phil Collin’s classic song, “In The Air Tonight”, which was inspired by his own wife’s infidelity and discussed events which ultimately lead to their divorce. Their rendition gives it a much more witchy vibe, foreshadowing things which have yet to take place. It injects you with this uneasy feeling that something could happen at any moment, but at the same time knowing that it was meant to happen all along. How do you take a song that’s already perfect and make it even more so? You can’t. You just have to use it to tell your own story, and I truly believe that is what they’ve done with their version.
The exploration of good vs evil is put center stage in this track from the get-go, with the first line being a line sampled from the 1999 film, The Messenger: The Story Of Joan of Arc. It asks the question, “Who are you to even think you can know the difference between good and evil?” Maria set out to use Joan of Arc as a metaphor for her own crucible, in which she suffers at the hands of the masses for not living up to their expectations. But she has come to terms with who she is and does not find fault in others, instead allowing them to burn her at the stake for their crimes, thus making herself a martyr for her own cause. She’s saying, go ahead and set me on fire if it makes you feel better, but it changes nothing. This one is another one of my favorites.
I wanna feel you strike me down with lightning. Here we continue on with the theme explored in Joan of Arc of allowing yourself to be crucified, only here it is done in a way which is much more direct. There is a ritualistic back beat that pounds throughout the entire track, giving you the feeling that you are now in the midst of the ritual you came to experience. This song says, I want you to give me everything you got, all of your hate; pour it down on me like rain from the sky because I want to feel all of it. Let it rain, bring on a hurricane and baptize me in a river of fire because I want to drown in your wrath and fury.
This is the witching hour. Three witches gather around a bubbling cauldron in the middle of a dark wood. This song’s origin no doubt resides in Maria’s trip to Salem, the site of the Salem Witch Trials. It puts this story on display right from the beginning, sampling a sound byte which speaks on that very thing: “Superstition and fear drove them all to accuse their friends and family of consorting with the devil.” This song also explores her own real-life crucible of persecution even further, with her no doubt feeling vilified by those around her for the things she thinks and believes and the way she expresses herself. Even given its dark nature, this is easily one of the poppiest songs on the album in regards to production value. It utilizes a mesmerizing trap beat that casts its own spell on you throughout the entire track. This song is voodoo in the purest sense of the word and is my favorite song on the album.
Crawl into these flames with me. This is one of the most insanely beautiful songs on the entire album and it is one of my top favorites. This song steps away from the good and evil exploration for a quiet moment with your soulmate within the flames of the bonfire. The idea of twin flames is a very esoteric concept. The idea is that people share one-half of each other’s souls. They are pieces of one soul split into two, thus the appropriate lyric, “One flame bursting into two”, which more or less signifies the separation of these two soul halves and these people going their separate ways. The idea is explored in much of the star-crossed fashion of Black Wedding. It has this harpsichord chord progression that pulls you inside the fire’s incandescent glow.
Without the darkness, there’d be no light in me. This song represents the full integration of dark and light. Maria has come to terms with everything that has happened to her, both the good and the bad and embracing all of it. It’s this knowledge of self and experience that frees her from the negative perceptions of those outside her. It also answers the question posed in Oh Lord. Am I good or am I bad? It’s both. And you cannot hope to achieve full enlightenment until you learn to bring both sides together. This is another one of my favorites because this is the moment where I can feel that she is finally comfortable in her own skin and is letting the world know that you cannot have the good without the bad.
The simple truth is that I just don’t give a fuck; I don’t care. This is the continuation of that strong self-knowledge. In a way, it feels as though it’s about people who criticize her from the comfort of their keyboards, analyzing her every thought, word and move in an effort to try to “fix” her. It’s about knowing that you’re messed up, about knowing that these flaws are simply just part of who you are and there is no problem at all. There’s an undeniably catchy chord progression in this song that will leave you hooked. There are lots of starts and stops and words that just kind of run into one another. I have to admit I didn’t know what to think of this song at first because I didn’t really understand what was going on lyrically, but now that I know and get what it’s about, I’m happy to say it’s another one of my favorites.
There’s this sick part of me thankful for the hate. This song is the apex of the album’s theme. Part of it is learning how to transmute hatred. When you know who you are and you are grounded in your own self-belief, the words of others begin to lose effect. Where do your roots start and where do your roots end? How well do you know yourself? Do you let the perceptions of others get to you or do you use them to your own benefit? In a way, it represents our connection to ourselves and to source. It says thank you for all of the hate because it has only made me stronger. It shows that without the bad, I would not be who I am today. Because she really does need it to help strengthen her own personal resolve and evolve as a human being.
LAY YOUR GUN DOWN
Won’t you lay your gun down? This song explores the album’s underlying theme one final time, in an attempt to lay her own gun down. In an intimately flawed final moment, Maria acknowledges her own flaws and lays them bare for the world to see. All these twisted little parts of her are what make her who she is. And in coming to terms with this, she reaches her own level of self-actualization. Pull the trigger and fire away because she’s made of scar tissue. Everything that has happened to her has made her indestructible. In This Moment are known for their low-key endings, and this song mirrors that of songs like Out Of Hell from Black Widow and 11:11 from Blood. You can really feel the emotion in the last few seconds of the album and feeling a sense of gratitude for what you have just experienced. The ritual has now come to an end.
