C.A.N.C.E.R.

RIP Tom Searle

I love discovering new bands: some are new new; others are just new-to-me. This weekend I discovered Architects, a new-to-me UK metalcore band that remind me a lot of Underoath (an American metalcore band which is one of my favorites).

Now before I go further with this whole metalcore thing, let me point out that I also love listening to everything from bossa nova (Astrud Gilberto) to pop (Whitney Houston) to classic rock (Electric Light Orchestra) to country (via small doses of Garth Brooks). But sometimes metalcore is just the thing, and Architects do it as well as any band I’ve heard: excellent musicianship, tight time changes, complex, layered rhythms, and profound lyrics.

As I read up about the band this weekend I learned that their guitarist Tom Searle passed away from cancer a few months ago at the age of 28. Their 2014 album Lost Forever /Lost Together includes the song “C.A.N.C.E.R” which poignantly describes both Searle’s battle with cancer as well as the universal struggle with this damnable disease, and indeed with mortality itself.  It reminds me that despite how varied the musical expressions of the human experience, there is a common shared experience of joy and pain that underlies it all:

“C.A.N.C.E.R”
No one knows permanence quite like you.

There’s a ruthlessness in all that you do.

This is not about what we deserve.

There’s no bias in the misery served.
C.A.N.C.E.R

So watch the sun sink into the sea.

There is a perfect peace, but don’t wait up for me.
And when we all fade away,

And this world can’t bare another day,

There will be no fight in broken bliss.

Respected will we be at the end of this.
I feel it now more than ever.

A reaper’s watch. My life is ready to sever.

Your name carries more than disease.

A symbol of man brought to his knees.

This is not about what we deserve.

There’s no bias in the misery served.

C.A.N.C.E.R

And when we all fade away,

And this world can’t bare another day,

There will be no fight in broken bliss.

Find a…

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