Issue 12: Accept The Change - Escapism Is A Dying Art

On the hype around the music we listen to

Part I: Rotten dream

On the best of days, my memory could be described as a loose collection of acorns rattling around in my skull. When I shake it enough, everything might line up just enough for me to remember something useful. So, when I tried figuring out how exactly I learned of the band Accept The Change, I found it to be a useless endeavour. I had never seen them live, that’s for sure.

The only fact I know, is when I ordered their only physical record. This knowledge is courtesy of the scary, unforgetting (and unforgiving, though that is a yarn for a different time) nature of the internet. A search through my now decades-spanning Gmail archive, filled with a lifetime of people I no longer speak to and brimming with personal cruelties, resulted in the knowledge that on the fifteenth of April of the year of our Lord 2016, at 4.08 in the afternoon, I ordered Escapism Is A Dying Art (white, /100) from Assault Records. Judging from the correspondence that followed this transaction, roughly a week later the record came into my possession.

This is all I know. Except how much I love this record.

Somewhere in the fog of my recollections lives the nagging memory that perhaps I heard a song of theirs (maybe Nameless Boys?) on a playlist somewhere. I want to say it was on a the Deathwish Records staff favourites playlist, as that was really one of the few I would listen to in the pursuit of new music. At the same time, the past mind is a temptress for laziness – believe this now, and so your mind shall be soothed.

And I wonder: how many people own this record? The exact total number of copies pressed eludes me, though it seems Assault Records will sell a brand new copy to anyone interested even still. This is all to say that, despite my appreciation, Accept The Change didn’t quite become the next big thing in hardcore.

It’s funny how we dismiss bands that have not risen to prominence, consciously or not. It seems we as music fans have internalised a gross sense of cultural Darwinism, (subconsciously) reasoning that a band just must not be that great because if it was, it would’ve been bigger. It’s the American Dream equivalent and it carries roughly the same sort of outdated baggage.

We all know the music industry does not actually work according to the law of quality – it’s a business. And in business, people with influence try to further their own interests. As highminded as we are in the underground music scene (and though better it is than what goes on Up There), connections and marketing are still very much A Thing.

Now, I don’t know the people who were in Accept The Change. Despite exchanging an email or two, I also won’t claim to know the person running the label that put out their record. Maybe they pushed hard, maybe they didn’t.

Right now, ten years after the group disbanded, it hardly matters anymore. What does matter, however, is how great this record is.

Part II: An honest reckoning

No hyperbole on my side here: Escapism Is A Dying Art is truly an amazing collection of songs. The band captures the latter day hardcore sound in the tradition of Modern Life Is War, Verse and Have Heart perfectly. Opening with a grand statement, both musically and lyrically, the record deftly weaves fast paced aggression with melody and brutally honest introspection.

In doing so, Accept The Change rises to the level of their influences – truly. Insofar as I can objectively judge anything (which is to say, I cannot, but bear with me anyway), this record can stand side by side with Songs To Scream At The Sun or Midnight In America (which is criminally underrated itself, by the way).

There is one song in particular that stands out to me: Nameless Boys.

Readers of this periodical should not be surprised of the fact that I have a weakness for brutally honest art – the type that does not romanticize the cruelty of existence. Call me sentimental, but it is my opinion that while suffering might beget art, it should not be justified by it.

Exactly this is what Nameless Boys is: an honest reckoning with depression.

My room’s a mess.

I’m coughing up cobwebs

and the sheets haven’t been refreshed

since you’ve been here last month.

There’s bottled up waste stuffed in all four corners

and I haven’t washed myself for days.

While it might inspire compassion for the subject, the song does not ignite a longing for sadness. Goths beware, this is not a sad song. Instead, it’s a song that does something that good art is uniquely qualified to do: convey a specific something that is otherwise inexpressible through conventional language.

'You'll be okay'

I gave my wallet

to the kneeling man down the street

‘cause the only thing I really need

is a breath of fresh air.

The songs takes a journey through the sheer flat misery of depression only to end up highlighting the inflation which the term itself has endured over the years. “Just get exercise and eat properly,” they will say. “You need to be outside more.” What a farce.

Anyway.

And then, finally a look at the cynical romanticisation of this disease in music:

Here’s to all the kids

with a smile on their face

singing songs about

suicidal days.

Strike a chord if you’re feeling bored

and you’ll do fine.

Consider yourself lucky

you have never died.

All this, wrapped up in driving hardcore punk, a type of music this band bends from aggressive anger into angry sorrow, which rings through the entire record. It’s a soulful record about human connection – and lack thereof.

Part III: Listen

Googling Accept The Change results in a few morsels of information. A two song EP was released digitally right before their final show. After their split in 2012, some of the members have gone on to form Lotus, which is still around (and great, by the way).

Tidbits. History.

And while I’m sure it’s not like it’s a secret what happened, but this is not about that.

What it is about, is that amazing art is all around us. We filter whatever comes in by many measures, but I propose that one of those – how popular something is – might not be as relevant as we think, or feel, it is.

Years ago, a song on a playlist grabbed me by the throat and inspired me in a way such that I felt a need to acquire a physical copy of the record it’s on.

Thankfully (for me, anyway, not quite the band, I suppose), they were still easily available. And since that April of 2016, it’s been on my turntable numerous times.

Sure, I can’t go see this band live anymore. But what they created, is still in the air for anyone to find. And so is so much outstanding music. It’s easy to find. You just have to listen.