Being As An Ocean‘s 2017 release of Waiting For Morning To Come was indeed prepared for by the band with under-toning messages of politics and difficult issues such as heartbreak and moving on after being damaged. The album is something of relation to Tales Of The Unknown. My first listen through had me confused honestly on what I listened to and what the album was concentrated around, but after a few more listens it really began to sink in.
The concept of Waiting For Morning To Come is a search to find yourself again after a bad breakup with a significant other or just list somewhere in the world, to be just a floating object, useless to mankind. The album’s opening track is titled “pink & red” and is an elegant yet strange piano piece; one of many of the instrumental tracks on the record but it opens the album like the intro to The Twilight Zone, which is odd but leaving you wanting more. The song “Black & Blue”, which was a single off the album, strings together Joel Quartuccio (vocals) and a symphonic dark background as he sings about how he is remembering a past love for all the wrong reasons. The relationship made him mentally sick and tired for being treated unwell. “floating through darkness, they seemed to” is a soft short piano melody that leads in to the next chapter of the album which begins with “Glow”, an anthem with lyrics such as, “let me kiss the scars on your wrists and no matter who has told you differently you are worth everything.”
“and fade away when morning came” is yet another instrumental piece on this record, but there is something hiding within all the instrumentals I think. “OK” talks about finally letting go of the relationship that Joel was in and was referring to in “Black & Blue” and the chorus is “Our love was lost, your heart turned cold and that was when I let you go.” Another track, “as though each of my problems would slip away” is another instrumental, but the title says it alone. The title refers to the same relationship that Joel has been telling us all along and now that “OK” is over, he is no longer with her and now it seems as if all of his problems have gone away now that he left her, in the mentally abusive relationship.
“Dissolve” is the next track on the record but was also the first single released back in February. “Dissolve” talks about that he is finally realizing that he is alone now and it’s a transition from the happiness to the sadness, with memories of springing from the bed to get up going to see her to bags that were filled up of belongings while they have an honest conversation about why they are separating as they wear their hearts on their sleeves. “Thorns” is a song about even though it may be rough leaving a relationship you have the ability to stand tall and to “Shake the death from your bones.” “eB tahT srewoP ehT” translated to “The Powers That Be” is a song that differentiates from the main course of the album to ask a big question to the listener, Are we truly ever free? The recording of the song is in fact backwards like it’s title, and it even sounds warped making it so you can’t really understand it, but there is discussion on politics and where it got the world to where it is now.
The final act of “waiting for morning to come” begins with another instrumental “Suddenly, I was alone”. “Blacktop” is the next song on the record and it talks about throwing your dreams out the window and how it is almost impossible to live the life you want to live, but instead we have to choose the American Dream and that’s what it takes to stay alive. “i saw before me, a bright red light, and silently i stood”, is the last instrumental track on the album, but the track is strange leaving me to believe that there is more out there than what we actually know of and maybe this song is an encounter of something unknown. Joel stood in front of a bright red light. But why? I believe it’s that he is taking a stop, more so of a break in all the doubt and pain he is going through but he is stopping and silently thinking back on the past and everything that got him to that spot where he is silently standing at.
“Waiting for morning to come” which is the final track on this record, has Joel singing, “it is hard to sing about love, even when it’s so hard to trust.” the track ends with “We are all waiting for morning.” I believe this hints to how hard the night is for many people and how when we are in bed or in the city at night thinking and dwelling negatively on our past that the only thing that we want in that moment is to see the sunrise again. And I believe that is exactly what the band did with this record. Leaving us in darkness, questioning what is happening with the instrumentals and showing us the sunrise within the songs. This record is a solid 9/10 for me, and I do believe that it is one of the best records of 2017.
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