Faker and the evocative dark storytelling, feral heaviness of "Nightmare's Coming Back"

 

"Can someone call for the maître d'? / I've lost control / And there's something frightening / Botanical taking over me..."

The evocative dark storytelling, feral heaviness of "Nightmare's Coming Back" by Sydney Australia's alt indie band Faker, from the resulting 4th studio album "Enjoy Your Problems" (after frontman Nathan Hudson's comeback after a 15 year hiatus), is mesmerizing in it's swinging wild abandon and abstract angsty storytelling. I am loving Hudson's voice, that sounds more gritty and seasoned than his late 90's to mid aughts self. This track feels exquisitely bruised and battered with post grunge dirtiness and a narrative soaked in existential dread. I have said hundreds of times that songs, to me, are like sonic Rorschach tests, so despite the seeds that built this song (more on that later), I love Hudson's story of transformation that feels part A24 horror and part reflective of how all of us (throughout life) feel sometimes caged by all sorts of pressures on us (physical or psychological or spiritual) to be something we are not and becoming ourselves and feeling free can feel like an immutable task. I feel like "becoming a tree" is that other self, at least that is what the black splatter looks like to me.        

"When I got sick
And I became a tree
I grew tall
And you grew farther and farther away from me
You know I never get stuck
But now I'm sprawled into the sea
Oh fuck, I'm becoming a tree

[Chorus]
And you didn't even blink
Though the nightmare's coming back
And I couldn't even dream of that
You wouldn't give up
Although you'vе been attacked
You're wrapped up in vinеs and mess
And your body's been hacked"

Whatever "Nightmare's Coming Back" might mean to you, it certainly feels potently raw and cuts deep. 

LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):

[About 'Enjoy Your Problems':


A record about facing inertia, attempting love, risking survival, and coming through it singing, Enjoy Your Problems is Faker frontman Nathan Hudson's comeback after a fifteen-year hiatus. With a vocal cadence mirroring The Cure's Robert Smith, Faker untangles his issues over ten prolific new-wave-tinged tracks. Speaking openly about his experiences as a queer musician diagnosed with AuDHD, Nathan Hudson condenses these feelings into palatable moments designed to move audiences.]

[Faker’s got new shoes. The Sydney band returned to the stage in Australia in April 2022 as frontperson, Nathan Hudson, returned from a spell of globetrotting in the name of making a new Faker album a reality. Faker has always been Hudson’s baby: he founded the band in 1996 and, in 2013, wrote on Tumblr that he “broke the band up”. Hudson was the driving force behind the EPs, Sound Out Loud and Kids On Overload, that put Faker on the map in 2001; and it was his songwriting and Brit inflected croon that made Faker’s 2007 single “This Heart Attack” a commercial radio hit. “This Heart Attack” reached #9 on the ARIA singles chart and achieved Platinum certification. It was voted #5 in the Hottest 100 of 2007, with Faker playing the main stage on the 2008 Big Day Out tour and a sold out headline shows at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre and The Forum in Melbourne. Hudson revived the band’s social media accounts on October 4, 2020, writing, “I went on a big adventure and disbanded the band, because I guess I needed to. Then the world went a little bit crazy and somewhere in the middle of that I figured out that I wanted to be in Faker again.” 13 months later, and after a few updates concerning the creation of a new Faker record, Hudson confirmed the Faker reunion was no joke and "we’re back”. Since the announcement, Hudson’s been chipping away at a new Faker album and committing his new ideas to tape in the early months of 2022.]

Art, especially diving into the whirlpool of the music business after an absence of time takes a whole lot of guts, or maybe is freeing. Either way, you do not take on something like this lightly, right?? I find that most songwriters create songs because they have to. This is apparent to me when I here this first glimpse of this new album and that glimpse feels like pure cathartic bloodletting. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

FULL LYRICS

Can someone call for the maître d'?
I've lost control
And there's something frightening
Botanical taking over me
My skin is a mess
You see I'm growing these leaves
I'm not quite sure what's up
But I'm becoming a tree

[Verse]
When I got sick
And I became a tree
I grew tall
And you grew farther and farther away from me
You know I never get stuck
But now I'm sprawled into the sea
Oh fuck, I'm becoming a tree

[Chorus]
And you didn't even blink
Though the nightmare's coming back
And I couldn't even dream of that
You wouldn't give up
Although you'vе been attacked
You're wrapped up in vinеs and mess
And your body's been hacked

[Verse]
It came too quick
About a quarter to three
It was hard to dismiss
The pain there in your eyes and my arms and my knees
I just hate the risk
What you might see
Awestruck, I'm stuck
And I'm becoming a tree

[Chorus]
And you wouldn't even blink
Are your nightmares coming back?
Well I couldn't even dream of that
You wouldn't give up
Although you've been attacked
You're wrapped up in vines and mess
And your body's been hacked

And I guess that's it
It wouldn't be all bad
If we could be together
I got sick
But it wouldn't be all bad
If we could see forever

[Bridge]
And it came up from the cold
And the swamp was thick with hysteria
It came up from the cold
It came up from suburbia
It came up from the cold
And I always
Thought I'd grow up to be
What I wanted to be
But I became a tree


[Chorus]
And you didn't even blink
Though your nightmare's coming back
Well I couldn't even dream of that
You wouldn't give up
Oh you've been attacked
You're wrapped up in vines and mess
Your body's been hacked
But I guess that's it
It wouldn't be all bad
If we could be together
And I got sick
But it wouldn't be all bad
If you could see forever





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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0RaO9p4AomXaVUXzV8SPVW

https://www.instagram.com/otherfaker

https://www.facebook.com/fakermusic

https://www.youtube.com/user/FakerVEVO

A defining act of the early 2000s, Faker broke out onto the scene with the addicting hit single "This Heart Attack", which received accolades including becoming the most broadcast Australian song of 2008 and reaching #5 in triple j's Hottest 100. Having headlined sold-out tours and shared stages with The Black Keys, Iggy Pop, The White Stripes, Arcade Fire and P!nk, Faker's unique breed of post-punk influenced alternative rock comes to a head with September 4th's release of Enjoy Your Problems.

Faker, indie rock, alt rock, new wave, post grunge, evocative storytelling, lead by queer singer songwriter Nathan Hudson, back after 15 year hiatus, "Nightmare's Coming Back", cathartic bloodletting, new album, 10/26