Rock Star Journalist

For a release that never gets into screaming, pummeling drums, or crazy riffage, Tyler Daniel Bean‘s Everything You Do Scares Me 7-inch from Tor Johnson Records is super-intense. Y’know how “emo” was once shorthand for “emotional hardcore”? That’s what this is — it doesn’t get you with volume, or in-your-face musical acrobatics. The intensity comes from the heft that that music carries.

There’s a weight here that conveys loss beyond just words. “Year of the Snake” rises at one point to seem like there’s going to be a breakdown. From there, it gains some propulsive drums, but it fades out to a slow instrumental bridge that sounds the way it feels to shake with anxiety.

“I Was Wrong” reminds me of Alkaline Trio’s “I Lied My Face Off” in terms of swing and sound, as well as a similar admission of failure. Both songs are hitting me really hard right now, and it’s difficult to put into words exactly how well the tone of Bean’s music captures how it feels to be down low.

“I know that it gets better every day/ But I don’t feel better […] I’ll smile, I promise” might be the lyrics that best encapsulate faking one’s way through a shitty week, putting on a brave face to save the ones around you from whatever you’re currently going through — unless, maybe, you count the cathartic “ya la la” guttural near-moans at the end.

Grab this. Seriously. It’s the most emotionally honest music I’ve heard in a while, and I can’t explain how good it feels to listen to something like this when you’ve been stressed. Bean seems to know what’s up about getting trapped inside your feelings.

It’s on black or root beer vinyl, in a hand silk-screened chipboard jacket. Label head Paul did an extraodinary job putting these together. They look way too nice to be stuck on a shelf somewhere, so make sure you take it out to play as often as you possibly can, so that people can look at it.