Chapter 57
Okay, now that you’re caught up, what does all this drama add up to?
If you’re the Saints, probably one hell of a headache.
If you’re us, one hell of a lead-up. Now that we at Pitchfork have gotten our grubby little hands on the brand-new, just-released One Day, Virginia, we’re here with an unprecedented joint review (mostly because we were all fighting to write it).
OVERALL OPINION: Holy fucking shit. Yes, that is the collective professional opinion of five highly trained music critics.
One Day walks a tightrope few artists can pull off, both a face-melting primal scream, seeing the Saints lean fully into the darker, more metal sound they’ve been experimenting with all year, and an elegy, with the kind of gutting, gossamer lyrics that will make you want to tattoo quotes on your body.
Musically, the Saints are at the top of their game.
Bassist Ripper Ravishankar surprisingly steps into the spotlight, playing lead guitar for half the album—and he absolutely shreds.
Where’s this man been hiding? His spine-tingling, wreck-the-arena energy that was caught on viral video when the Saints debuted the track “I Need Some Help” at the Dolby Live in Vegas is somehow amped up even higher on the album.
And we demand to witness how fast Ravishankar’s fingers must be flying on the introspective yet trippy “Another Story About Wolves.” Get this man a solo album—he deserves it.
Let’s not forget Kenny Lovins, whose drumming is a revelation, particularly on tracks “Little Beasts” (holy hands-on-fire, Batman!) and “Six Feet Under,” the ragged, visceral single that started it all.
In a Stereogum interview earlier this year, Lovins called himself the “backbone” of the group, and we think he’s not giving himself enough credit.
His work is drumming at its most committed and virtuosic— yes, Lovins is the steady beat that keeps you moving, but this album gives him plenty of space to play and invent.
And when he does, the man’s sheer love of music is contagious.
As for Cortland herself, the controversial singer-songwriter over whom so much digital ink has been spilled?
One of the most immediate impressions you get from her lyrics is of hyper self-awareness.
Even while she’s in the throes of grief, Cortland sees herself in the throes of grief, and she presents this double consciousness as the curse of the artist: when you’re highly sensitive and in the habit of mining your interior life for art, Cortland seems to say, you can’t ever just feel—you’re always watching yourself feel, both observer and subject.
She represents this double consciousness by writing about her grief as if it’s a literal ghost she can converse with, a spirit outside herself.
Other critics have taken issue with the fact that Cortland takes her emotions seriously, presenting them without qualifiers or minimizing language, augmenting her lyrics with epic sounds.
She doesn’t feel the need to be subtle, or contract big questions about love and afterlife into small, winking moments.
One Day, Virginia is defined by the loss of Virginia Cortland, Cortland’s younger sister and the Saints’ former manager.
But to say this is simply an album about grief is to misunderstand it.
One Day is about the oldest fantasy known to man: wanting to raise the dead.
The sheer sonic ambition of the album feels like an attempt to transcend our status as time-bound animals raging against the dying of the light.
The fact that this is an ultimately impossible task makes the album an elegy dedicated not just to Virginia, but to the human condition, which the band understands as inherently tragic.
It is our fate, the Saints seem to say, to live our lives loving others even though that very act is the thing that will ultimately unravel us.
But if you don’t hear hope in this album, you need to get your ears checked.
Even the title is about the promise of one day being reunited with the people we love, one day doing their legacy justice, showing them exactly how much they were loved.
One day, one day, one day—the refrain epitomizes the sense of hopeful deferral that defines both the album as well as the Future Saints’ very name.
This hopefulness comes across most profoundly on the final track of the album, “Tomorrow Is the Beginning of Forever,” rumored to be the last song the band wrote.
All in all, it’s a spectacular accomplishment.
That makes the un-precedented place the band is in right now even more of a potential tragedy.
To top off their busy year, they received their first-ever Grammy nods, including in two of the most prestigious categories.
Yet the noms followed on the heels of Cortland’s public spiraling, a series of events covered rather abhorrently by the media.
Her reps have confirmed she’s currently seeking help at the Atone Treatment Center, an addiction and mental health facility favored by celebs for its strict privacy policies.
With Hannah off the grid, and the rest of the band going silent, forgoing press, everyone, including us, is left with a burning question: After a year of triumphs and tribulations, will the Saints even make it to the Grammys?
ALBUM SCORE: 9.5/10