Afterlife: Anthems For Misfits

Sometimes you have to just sit back and throw your middle finger in the air. It’s part and parcel of growing up: life isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not fair. As humans, we like to bottle things up. Every now and then, our emotions bubble up and up until they explode. If you’ve ever wondered what that explosion of teenage angst would sound like, nu-metal revivalists AFTERLIFE has the answer. Their second album Part Of Me was born in a baptism of fire.

Frustrated by America’s political unrest and downtrodden by COVID-19’s global takeover, vocalist Tyler Levenson, guitarist Andrew McGuire, drummer Luke Walkinshaw and bassist Tristan Edwards took to channelling their anger and pain into something productive.

“Through 2020, I dealt with so many different situations, and so many realities were brought to the table. And I could sit and complain about them and try to fix them or do what I do best and write a song about it,” enthuses Tyler, proud of the perseverance through pain that gave birth to Part Of Me. “I feel like all this stuff is bad, but it provided such good material for me to write about, and it was a great outlet for me because at the time, my life wasn’t really in the best spot. I really only had one option which was to write a new record.”

Part Of Me is the audible equivalent of cutting open AFTERLIFE’s brain and digging in deep. For Tyler, it was like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it felt like exposing himself for all to see. On the other, it felt like he was empowering himself and others to open up.

“There was a lot of times where I felt super uncomfortable writing certain things and knowing that all these people are going to hear it, especially with Miles Away. That song tells the story of my relationship falling apart and anyone who listens to the album is going to hear that story. But knowing I put it out there for such an audience also feels very empowering, like I was able to get it off my chest, and not be concerned with what people think about it because it’s my truth.”

The truth about Part Of Me is that it’s not for the faint-hearted. Across thirty minutes, AFTERLIFE take you on a whistle-stop tour of life’s trials and tribulations. From Tyler’s experiences of domestic abuse growing up to his disbelief at America’s leadership, intensified by the heartache of a breakup happening as the record was pieced together. But it’s all the better for it, and it’s exactly as they planned.

“Every single song I wanted to come directly from myself, or one of the guys in the band at least conceptually. That way, when people are listening to the record, they feel as if they have a part of every member of AFTERLIFE in this album” admits Tyler, reflecting on the emotional maturity that underlines Part Of Me. In many ways, it’s an album that comes from a desire to close a chapter.

“That song [Part Of Me] is the ending to our song Broken Home from our first record. I went through some severe domestic assault and abuse when I was a kid, so I reached the point in my life where I wanted to close that chapter, like I personally don’t feel like writing that song again, because I feel if I do it might lose its honesty.”

Honesty is at the heart of AFTERLIFE’s nu-metal revival. It powers their shape-shifting sound that blurs the line between nu-metal, post-hardcore, and rap-metal. It strips back the experiences of the pandemic for all to see, and for all to relate to, too.

“Envy is a feeling we all feel, especially in the pandemic, seeing friends doing all these different things, or even prior to that, like, you’re always kind of looking at somebody else’s life and thinking, you know, maybe if that was me, I’d be a little bit more happier.”

Happiness isn’t something that comes easy in this life but admitting when you’re not okay is even harder. With a platform at their fingertips, Tyler and co. felt the need to stand up and speak out. Ultimately, they wanted to use this record to get people talking about how they feel, to create a safe space for them to do so.

“I think there’s such a stigma, especially with men, and in male musicians where you can’t talk about being upset,” asserts Tyler, disillusioned by the societal codes and conventions we’ve stuck to for so long. “I feel like society as a whole is always like ‘men are supposed to be strong’, but it’s like you’re dealing with the same emotions as anybody else so I feel like I want more people to be open and honest with their feelings and emotions, whether you’re male, female, or any other pronoun, you should be able to be honest with how you feel, especially people in bands because like it’s stressful, it’s tough.”

AFTERLIFE are not a band to wallow in their own misery. They rise like phoenixes from the ashes of their own lives. To become a beacon of positivity for others, however, they first had to reflect on their own experiences as a band. “I think in order to write a record that is going to move the needle for my band, I had to be more self-reflective with myself. Like the first record, it was fast, it was angry, and it was angsty, you know, it was very much how I was feeling at the time, so I knew I couldn’t write the same album twice,” Tyler reflects, revealing the vulnerability that soaks every aspect of this album. It’s fed so much into the record it’s the only thing Tyler truly wants their listeners to take away.

“I really want people to look at themselves from a different perspective. I want them to question their emotions and question how they feel and notice that there’s something wrong, so they need to go out and change it,” he says. “The world is fucked right now, in a lot of different ways, and I want people to for once just hop out of the bubble that is social media and just look at the natural world and everything going on and kind of see in the moment everything going on and how they could change it. There’s so much thoughtless stuff out there, it’s like, just open your eyes a little more, I’m sure there’s so much more to see.”

If Part Of Me teaches us anything, it’s if life gives you lemons, open up your body and mind and make lemonade. Use your pain to practise positivity and build a better you. AFTERLIFE are a band of believers, and in a post-pandemic world, that counts for a lot.

Part of Me is out now via Hopeless Records.

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