Vitriola

Vitriola

Recorded at hometown Omaha, NE’s ARC Studios with Mike Mogis — who last co-produced with Cursive on Happy Hollow — Vitriola takes a different approach than the tightly woven conceptual albums of the band’s past. It is less rigidly themed and more responsive, and finds the band struggling with existentialism veering towards nihilism and despair; the ways in which society, much like a writer, creates and destroys; and an oncoming dystopia that feels eerily near at hand. There’s a palpable unease that wells beneath Vitriola’s simmering requiems and fist-shakers: at its core, the album is about a search for meaning that keeps coming up empty, and finding the will to keep going despite the fear of a dark future. The album directs frustration and anger not only at the universe at large and a modern society that seems to grow more confusing, unstable, and chaotic with each passing day, but also inwardly towards ourselves — illustrating an uncommon self-awareness that’s become a hallmark of Kasher’s songwriting. “Vitriola was written as a reaction to an ulcer I now live with as a result of all the ‘vitriol’ seeping into our daily lives,” explains Kasher. “Rather than contributing to the anger, hopefully this record can be witnessed as a reflection of our collective anxieties, and perhaps offer a little catharsis.

Sonically, Vitriola runs the gamut between rich, resonant melodicism, Hitchcockian anxiety (frequently courtesy of Patrick Newbery’s keys and Megan Siebe’s cello, an instrument used here again for the first time since The Ugly Organ), and powerful dynamics — and no Cursive album would be complete without scream-along lyrics that make for unlikely anthems. – https://www.15passenger.com/

Vitriola album info

All songs written by Cursive

Tim Kasher – Vocals and guitar
Ted Stevens – Guitar and vocals
Matt Maginn – Bass
Patrick Newbery – Keyboards, piano, and horns
Clint Schnase – Drums
Megan Siebe – Cello
Mike Mogis – Additional instrumentation
Jess Price – Backing vocals (5,9)

Recorded at ARC in Omaha, NE, February – June 2018
Recorded and Engineered by Mike Mogis
Mixed at ARC by Mike Mogis
Produced by Mike Mogis and Cursive
Mastered by Ed Brooks
Mastered at Resonant Mastering
Cover Artwork by Meghan Stevens
Design by Ted Stevens, Tim Kasher and Matt Maginn
Background Image: ESA / Hubble with additional filtering texture & adaptation

In October 2018, the band started to post these backgrounds on the songs on their Facebook Page, 1 song per day. Some great insights:

1 – Free To Be Or Not To Be You And Me
“This song barely made it to the practice space. It was our final writing session, so it was imperative that each song brought as much potential as possible, as we already had a stockpile of music. If I recall, “Under The Rainbow” and “Life Savings” had been introduced earlier that week, so it was feeling like a strong session. But an earlier version of “Ghost Writer” wasn’t ‘reading’ well – is that a pun? Regardless, intended – and another song I had thought would be a sure thing ended up falling flat, so I needed something else to bring to the table. I had been working on “Free To Be…” earlier that month and thought I’d give it a go with the band.

Having offered that backstory, I’d like to offer “Free To Be…” as an excellent example of how much a song can transform from the acoustic guitar to a full band setting. I certainly liked the song, but my imagination wasn’t able to fully fill in the blanks of how heavy and urgent it could sound with a full band. The effect was palpable for me, and now I can’t possibly imagine why I WOULDN’T have brought this song to the band for consideration. It became the opening track, for crissakes; a song that initially wasn’t even good enough to share with the band??” – Tim Kasher

2 – Pick Up The Pieces
“The main “riff” of this song reminds me of Helmet, though the song didn’t turn out much like Helmet, I suppose. The first pause is a two-count, followed by a one-count, which made for many fumbles as we attempted learning this together. Adding insult to injury, we decided to create a song break where the pauses are BOTH one-counts, resulting in a frustrated practice room ready for lunch or a smoke or anything to get us away from the song for a moment.

The last note of this main “riff” went way up to an A#, giving the line an odd, quirky feel upon completion. Literal moments before pressing record in the studio, I suggested we switch the A# to a low D, due to the quirkiness of the A# never quite sitting with me right. I recognize this likely reads as gibberish to most all of you, non-musicians and musicians alike, but I hope this offers insight to what a major difference one little note can make, as well as how important it can be to continue writing all the way up to recording, during recording and even after recording”. Tim Kasher

3 – It’s Gonna Hurt
“This song went through a few rewrites as we tried to figure out it’s length. It feels more freeform than what we tend to do; my compositions tend to be fairly rigid, but this song is more of a… groove? It’s the type of song you want to play and play, so it’s tempting to let it run for ten minutes. We had to truncate.

I asked Ted to sing this song after attempting it myself and not feeling content with how I sound on it. Ted has a great voice that works well with lower melodies, so it seemed fitting here. We ended up deciding on a blend of both.

Not only is this the first song we worked on for this long writing session, it also seems to be the most resonant song amongst listeners. That’s interesting to me, that the first song introduced for the record would wind up being the best received. I’m going to wager a guess that this is the first time that’s ever happened for me, as generally there’s a need to get through a few bad ideas before settling on what the record should sound like.” – Tim Kasher

‘Maginn and I agreed early on in the life of Its Gonna Hurt to not tell Tim how much we loved it. We were worried that he would start to over think it and slap the “poppy” label on it.’ – Clint Schnase

4 – Under The Rainbow
I’ve already had plenty of discussions about this song’s lyrical content harkening back to Wizard of Oz imagery, and/or connecting it to subjects from Happy Hollow. I was certainly aware of these things, though it didn’t keep me from moving forward with the song. I started thinking about what “under the rainbow” could potentially mean, and wanted to explore it both as a term for economic struggle and as a form of disillusionment.

Despite the reference, I really don’t intend any correlation to Happy Hollow, though it’s obviously attributed to Wizard Of Oz, as “Over The Rainbow” is kind of inherent to one’s consideration of what “Under The Rainbow” implies. So be it! I love Wizard of Oz references!! I was more concerned with the direct reference to the old Chevy Chase movie, “Under The Rainbow”, until it occurred to me that only a small minority of people have ever seen it (or knows it exists!) (Matt and I saw it in the theater!). – Tim Kasher

5 – Remorse
“I had already submitted a handful of songs that were more of a bombastic, weird, synthy brand of rock. Out of all the songs I had been currently working on they seemed to be the most likely to fit on a Cursive record. There was this piece I had been working on though, a slower moodier song, that I didn’t know what to do with. On a whim I recorded it as a voice memo on my phone and emailed it Tim. Why the hell not, right? I remember him texting back fairly quickly that he liked it. He didn’t necessarily say he liked it as a Cursive song but just that he liked it. So I thought he was just complimenting me and then moving on to the grungier, Cursive sounding songs. But when he emailed us the next batch of demos, that piano piece was included with vocals and guitar. It was great hearing this stuff over the shell of a song I created. It was the first step of it actually becoming a song. Then after every practice hearing it come a little more together with Ted’s spacey dreamlike guitars kept giving the song more promise. Then it was time to track it and we heard Meg’s cello on it for the first time, her part was mainly improvised and I think she did an amazing job. I heard Jess’s (Campdogzz) vocals on it the first time we were listening to mixes and it was so hauntingly beautiful. I really appreciate all the work everyone had thrown into this little piano piece I had written.” – Patrick Newbery

This is a song that Patrick Newbery brought in for consideration. Patrick has been playing with us ever since joining up as part of the Happy Hollow touring party, though this is the first time he has contributed to songwriting (He actually wasn’t with us for the writing of Mama, I’m Swollen, and we were still hesitant about bringing too many new members in when we did I Am Gemini, so Patrick laid key parts onto that album after the writing was finished). I intentionally kept my vocals spare, as I didn’t want to walk all over what felt like another person’s song, but ultimately I’m glad to have gone through the collaboration.

Earlier sequences had Remorse placed just before “It’s Gonna Hurt.” After excess shuffling, it made more sense to split them up.” – Tim Kasher

6 – Ouroboros
This is one of the songs off the album that I’ve maintained the most enthusiasm for. It was a shoe-in for opening track for the longest time, that is, until outside parties started hearing it and a sort of polarization occurred. Turns out, not everyone hears the song in the same positive light as we do, haha, which was enough for us to reconsider it’s premier placement at the top of the record. Fair enough, we still wholeheartedly believe in the song, and placing it in the middle offers it a different sort of weight, suggesting an emphasis of tying both ends of the record together. And hey, it gets that coveted “First Song On Side B” spot, for all the vinyl and cassette listeners out there.

Though it didn’t get a complete lyrical overhaul as some other songs did, Ouroboros went through a serious lyrical editing process. There’s a lot of words in there, and a lot of ideas being thrown around, so I suppose it only makes sense. I had to scrub out the specter of our current Dingus In Office more on this song than perhaps any other, removing lines such as “A first world president seconds from third world war” and “a dickhead president of limited character” (referencing Twitter’s limited character usage). – Tim Kasher

7 – Everending
Lyrically, this song went through some wholly different ideas before landing on this struggle of love in a temporal world. One version started with me on my death bed looking back at a life unfinished, loosely referencing “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. It had a repeating line “Who is going to tell your story”, which a friend suggested felt a bit too similar to a song from “Hamilton”, haha. So be it. The earliest version of the song used the refrain, “Hold it over my dead body”, then, “Rolling over my dead body” – imagery and a play on words I wanted to use, but alas, didn’t make it into the final concept for the song.

Along with “It’s Gonna Hurt”, this is among the first songs written for the album. I recall Clint (@klintor) giving his approval after we first worked on it, saying that he liked this style of writing quite a bit. That was enough encouragement to keep writing in this more laid-back, melancholy style, though I don’t think I ever hit on a song similar to this one again, which may have helped Everending make it on the record, as it feels set apart from the rest of the record. – Tim Kasher

8 – Ghost Writer
This was the last song to make it onto the record, up against a handful of songs that would have been suitable to take its place. There was a lot of disagreement on what final songs would be chosen for the record, and this song was initially placed in a pile we called “Summer songs”, i.e., songs we would look at later after Vitriola is finished. But due to the lack of consensus on what songs should complete the album, Mogis suggested we take Ghost Writer back into consideration. It still needed lyrics, resulting in the fastest and easiest lyrics I wrote for the entire project. They came together rather quickly one morning and I recorded them the next day. I think it helped to bring a new song into album consideration; as a few of the other songs had reached a stalemate, this one arrived fresh without that excess emotional baggage. It was a song we all could agree on.

The earliest version of this song didn’t make the cut, due to a very poppy chorus we all initially devoured then discarded, which tends to be the problem with such pop confections. The “bridge” around the three quarter mark of the song, the part that starts with “It’s just a simple entry…”? Well, that’s actually the very “pop chorus” in question, but we switched the chords mostly to minor and, of course, didn’t allow it to be repeated two or three times throughout the song, as choruses traditionally do. This tends to be the Cursive way: take something pretty/catchy and mangle it. – Tim Kasher

9 – Life Savings
I’d like to preface this post by explaining that this is one of the only times – to my recollection – that I’ve borrowed material from my past catalog! Life Savings began with the basic riff, written shortly after reflecting on a Slowdown Virginia song, “Vicki My Sick Gills.” I wasn’t intentionally borrowing from it, but it was fairly obvious I was taking influence from the song. I had to consider whether this was acceptable or not… and clearly, I decided it was fine, haha. I mean, is it so wrong to steal from one’s own catalog? Yes, it can be wrong, if you DO IT ALL THE TIME. But as far as this rare instance is concerned, well, I’m letting myself off the hook. And again, it was unintentional…

So, the song was called “Vicki II” for the entirety of production, up until I finally got the lyrics written for it. It was certainly tempting to call this song, “Money, Money”, which felt almost tongue-in-cheek, the sort of title that harkens Top 40. I chose “Life Savings” because I wanted to emphasize that breakdown section that delves into the “wooden box with a broken lock”. That somehow feels like the lynchpin for the song, that I’m still not entirely sure why… I also like calling it “Life Savings” as an opportunity to ponder how odd and sad that term can seem, when you think about it.

I recall a couple other times I borrowed from Slowdown Virginia, but those reasons were far clearer: “Dedication To Desertion” (from Such Blinding Stars…) borrows a motif from Slowdown, but that felt essential to us, as it was from a song we REALLY liked, yet never had the chance to release after Slowdown broke up. And one of our earliest songs, Dispenser, was actually a Slowdown Virginia song (and sounds like one). – Tim Kasher

I intentionally tried to play exactly what Casey Caniglia [drummer of Slowdown Virginia] played for certain parts of Life Savings. A subtle nod to him and any old school Slowdown fans. – Clint Schnase

10 – Noble Soldier / Dystopian Lament
This song went through the wringer! It’s a testament to our steadfast appreciation of this song that we kept working on it, despite it’s many incarnations. The second half, or “Dystopian Lament”, actually hasn’t changed at all since we first laid it out, other than determining it’s length (which we all agreed should be, at the very least, long). But the first half was a few different things before settling on what became “Noble Soldier”. And by different things, I mean different songs altogether. What we had was a second half that we really loved, but felt couldn’t stand alone. For whatever reason, it felt like it needed an opening, something to introduce it. So every few months, it seemed like I’d bring in some new composition to open that song, but none of them would stick. I nearly trashed the song… but determined, I recall sitting at my parent’s kitchen table an hour before practice attempting – yet again – to come up with something suitable as a lead-in for “Dystopian Lament”. The version I came up with that morning was wobbly, but there was enough there to at least move forward with the song, vs. scrapping it. Patrick did some very cool synth stuff early on to this new section which helped convince us we were on the right path.

The lyrics to this song are influenced by The Handmaid’s Tale, though there aren’t any direct correlations. It’s influenced by that world, I suppose, but the character is a male, liberal activist who is mentally and emotionally defeated as he is forced to enter the military. – Tim Kasher

Life Savings – Official video

Pick up the pieces – Official video