Even those aware of how The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die have evolved over their 16 years of existence might be surprised when they hear Dreams of Being Dust. The band’s fifth full-length, and the follow-up to 2021’s Illusory Walls, it’s an album that redefines who and what TWIABP are. That change was already apparent with the recent release of the heavy, ultra-political single “Beware The Centrist”. When news of the song was shared on Stereogum, one comment simply stated: “The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Fucking Shred.” It wasn’t wrong. A coruscating 104 seconds of musical violence, it’s quite possibly as loud and brutal as TWIABP have ever been.
Though it might seem like a strange shift superficially, this move towards a heavier, more aggressive music actually fits the trajectory of the band’s constantly developing sound. Now a six-piece consisting of founding member Josh Cyr (bass), Steven Buttery (drums, percussion), David Bello (lead vocals), Chris Teti (guitar, vocals), Katie Dvorak (vocals, keyboards) and Anthony Gesa (guitar, vocals), TWIABP have always had a flair for the heavier side of things. It was just lurking in the background. Now, they’re now fully ready to embrace it and bring it to the forefront.
“One of the first bands I bonded with Steve about was Snapcase,” remembers Teti, “but that was in 2011 when we were this light indie, post-rock-leaning band. But with this fifth album, we just said ‘Fuck it.’ We’ve done the post-rock thing for multiple albums, and that’s totally cool, but I feel that live it was shifting a little more aggressive already, and I never want to settle. We were also supposed to do a split with a hardcore band, so I took that as a sign to write something really fucking crazy.”
That split never happened, but the two songs TWIABP wrote for it—“Dimmed Sun” and “For Those Who Will Outlive Us”—bookend this record, setting the stage for what happens in between. And what happens in between is, to put it mildly, something of a musical and thematical revelation. If “Beware The Centrist” didn’t already give it away, these are songs made for—and born out of—these harrowing, troubling times, a world ravaged and devastated by late-stage capitalism, neo-liberalism and neo-fascism. And TWIABP have pulled no punches in addressing the crises that have developed as a result. Second track “Se Sufre Pero Se Goza”—which translates as “It is suffered but it is enjoyed”—is a blast of bleak post-hardcore that rages against the dying of the light (or, perhaps, the forces that have brought us to this moment in time), its vicious energy counterbalanced by a bittersweet refrain of ‘We need more time’ that repeats throughout. It also features Brendan Murphy from Counterparts, one of three guest vocalists on this album.
Penultimate track “Auguries Of Guilt”—first released in June 2024—might sound more contemplative musically, but its subject matter is no less brutal or relevant, examining the way history is rewritten depending on who is victorious. And then there’s “December 4th, 2024”—the date that United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed.
“When Dave sent me that,” says Teti, “there was a moment where I wondered if it should be the title. It was a little jarring, but I respect it.”
“I'm usually more 'Let's not do something crazy' but I think it's an important day,” says Gesa. “It was something that happened that changed the course of history, that shows if you push people to a certain point, they’re going to start reacting. This is how uprisings happen. It's a basic human rights violation when you're denying people health care, and having a song about that, having a song titled that, shows we’re not trying to bury the narrative, just like with “Beware The Centrist”. This is an important person in history and what happened is justified.”
Co-produced by Teti and his studio partner Greg Thomas, and mastered by Will Putney, Dreams of Being Dust, then, is a violent record for violent times. But it’s also an incredibly important record, one that offers an unflinchingly real reflection of these troubled times we’re living in. But while it’s dark, it never despairs. Rather, it confronts and fights back with purpose and passion. Outside of its political contexts, it also feels like an important album on a personal level—the sound of a band reckoning with their own legacy and history, as well as the scene they’ve cultivated since forming in 2009. Because although this album moves the band forward sonically, it does so while casting an eye on their past. That’s something solidified by the guest spots here. The band have known Brendan from Counterparts for years, but since their early days they’ve also been orbiting around Full Of Hell.
“We were playing basements at the same time as those guys,” remembers Teti. “We’d go see each other play shitty basements or VFW halls. We've toured the same venues with all these bands so it just makes sense.”
The latter’s Dylan Walker lends his powerful vocals to the ominous, off-kilter post-hardcore of “Reject All And Submit”, while Mike Sugars from Church Tongue—whose last EP Teti helped engineer—turns the otherwise beautiful and dreamy “Captagon” into something much more fierce and ferocious. Greg Thomas, too, contributes to the slow motion death march of closer “For Those Who Will Outlive Us”. Because at the heart of this record, despite the turbulent times that inspired much of it, is a wonderful sense of community and solidarity that acknowledges TWIABP’s history while intentionally moving on from it. Dreams of Being Dust, then, is almost the opposite of its title—it stands as another next step and a new era for a band whose existence has been full of them.
“Even with Illusory Walls,” says Teti, “we had another green cover, there were some longer post-rock songs and we ended the record with the band name repeating again. It capped off that sort of era, and I wanted to re-shift the focus.”
“It’s cool having this new era where, aside from the guest spots, it's just the six of us on it,” says Gesa. “Everything you hear is reliant on what we're capable of, and not leaning into anyone else to make it grandiose. This is all insular, and coming from the vision that Chris had with it as songs were building and we were writing. It’s us.”
