''The Unnatural World'' is the second studio album by American rock duo

Have a Nice Life Have a Nice Life is an American rock band founded in Middletown, Connecticut in 2000 by Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga. The duo is best known for their 2008 debut album '' Deathconsciousness'', which received little attention from professional ...

. It was released on February 4, 2014, via

The Flenser The Flenser (also known as Flenser Records) is an American record label founded by Jonathan Tuite in 2009 in San Francisco, California. It describes itself as a "dark music" label or a "dark experimental record label". Bands that work with or ha ...

and the band's own record label Enemies List Home Recordings. It is a follow-up to 2008's ''

Deathconsciousness ''Deathconsciousness'' is the debut studio album by American rock duo Have a Nice Life, released on January 24, 2008, on Enemies List Home Recordings. Recorded independently by the band members on a budget of less than $1,000, ''Deathconsciousnes ...

'' and 2010's ''Time of Land'' EP. The band recorded the album from 2008 to 2012 "in various bedrooms" between

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

and

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, according to its liner notes. The tracks "Defenestration Song" and "Burial Society" premiered in December 2013 and January 2014, respectively. The full album was streamed by

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...

from January 20 to January 27, 2014.

Tracks and musical style

Andrew Sacher and Wyatt Marshall of

BrooklynVegan ''BrooklynVegan'' is an American online music magazine founded in 2004 by David Levine. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and originally focused on vegan food and the music community in and around New York City, before broadeni ...

wrote that "the album falls somewhere between

goth Goth or Goths may refer to: * Goths, a Germanic people Arts and entertainment * Gothic rock or goth, a style of rock music * Goth subculture, developed by fans of gothic rock * ''Goth'' (2003 film), an American horror film * ''Goth'' (2008 f ...

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with dream pop) is a subgenre of indie rock, indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion (music), distortion and effects, a ...

and

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

." They also described the album as "addictively melodic for such dark music." Noisey Vice stated that the song "Burial Society" had "a

Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN (stylized as NIИ), is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. Its members are the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Trent Reznor and his frequent col ...

-meets-post-punk vibe," which "evidenced Have a Nice Life's leanings on the sonic dark side in the record. Lars Gotrich of

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

described the track "Defenestration Song" as "the kind of pitch-black, post-punk party-rocker that'd really turn up at any Goth Night dance." He also wrote: "A two-note guitar riff is barely heard above the dank din as warming feedback permeates the whole affair, like the kind that lulls you to sleep just before an icy death" while comparing the song's rhythm and distorted bass line to the works of the

gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...

pioneers

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

. Of the track "Dan and Tim, Reunited by Fate",

Tiny Mix Tapes ''Tiny Mix Tapes'' (also ''TMT'' or ''tinymixtapes'') is an online music and film webzine that focuses primarily on new music and related news. In addition to its reviews, it is noted for its subversive, political, and sometimes surreal news, ...

wrote that "the pair cherrypick tropes from a number of bleak traditions: reverb-drenched industrial beats;

doom-metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

sludge Sludge (possibly , or some dialect related to slush) is a semi-solid slurry that can be produced from a range of industrial processes, from water treatment, wastewater treatment or on-site sanitation systems. It can be produced as a settled sus ...

; shoegaze drones conjured from effects pedals; post-punk bass chuggery; a plaintive piano+static

post-rock Post-rock is a subgenre of experimental rock that emphasizes Texture (music), texture, atmosphere, and non-traditional song structures over conventional rock techniques. Post-rock artists often combine rock instrumentation and rock stylings wit ...

crescendo In music, the dynamics of a piece are the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings require interpretation by the performer depending ...

." Tiny Mix Tapes also wrote that the band holds this genre palette together "by matching its compositional ambitions with idiosyncratic recording and production techniques."

Track listing

Personnel

;Have a Nice Life *Dan Barrett - performance, writing *Tim Macuga - performance, writing ;Production *Kevin Blackler - mastering

References

External links

The Unnatural World on The Flenser Records
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unnatural World, The 2014 albums Have a Nice Life albums The Flenser albums