As It Is’ third LP ‘The Great Depression’ was recently released and sees the quartet enter a new era with a darker tone than their past work. ‘The Great Depression’ is a concept album on mental health and society’s perceptions of it, told from the perspective of ‘the poet’. The album has been split into four sections fitting with the concept:
Stage I: Denial
- The Great Depression
- The Wounded World
- The Fire, The Dark
Stage II: Anger
- The Stigma (Boys Don’t Cry)
- The Handwritten Letter
- The Question, The Answer
Stage III: Bargaining
- The Reaper (ft. Aaron Gillespie)
- The Two Tongues (Screaming Salvation)
- The Truth I’ll Never Tell
Stage IV: Acceptance
- The Haunting
- The Hurt, The Hope
- The End.
The three singles previously released from the album represent the concept well, with ‘The Wounded World’ tackling the negative attitudes and problems of today’s society, ‘The Stigma (Boys Don’t Cry)’ targeting toxic masculinity, and ‘The Fire, The Dark’ showing the decline and emotions of a broken love.
Watch ‘The Wounded World’ here:
The album so far has received an amazing reaction from their fans. This is not only shown on social media but also in chart positions, with the album currently at 24 in the midweek charts compared to their last album which didn’t make it into the top 40. This shows that it would be hard to argue that ‘The Great Depression’ is some of the band’s best work.
Just listened to The Great Depression all the way through. Amazing. What @ASITISofficial did in this album is so important. It’s raw, it hurts, and it’s not easy to hear. But it’s beautiful, perfect, and everyone needs to listen to it. Thank you, As It Is, for everything you do.
— paige (@paige2o_) August 10, 2018
https://twitter.com/alexddww/status/1027664969024917505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/thisistheend07/status/1027662833071345664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Other standouts on the album for us include ‘The Reaper (ft. Aaron Gillespie)’. One of the heaviest songs on the album, ‘The Reaper’ features a strong bassline, adds depth to the album, and is complimented in the bridge by Aaron Gillespie’s vocal performance which adds another dimension to the song.
Another standout is ‘The Truth I’ll Never Tell’, a catchy and melodic tune that has more of a feel of the band’s older records than the rest of the album but still fits the concept perfectly. Finally, ‘The Handwritten Letter’ is not only an amazing song in our opinion, but we love the touch of using fans’ voices talking about what music means to them as backing vocals in the song.
Catch As It Is on The Great Depression tour starting this November:
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Tickets go on sale for Act I of #TheGreatDepressionTour tomorrow at 10am local time.
Where will we see you? pic.twitter.com/78IBFnSou9
— xASxITxISx (@ASITISofficial) May 31, 2018
Here at CelebMix we’re sure it’ll be one not to miss!
What do you think of the album? Tweet us on @CelebMix to let us know.