Review: Planes Mistaken For Stars ‘Do You Still Love Me?’
One of the reasons I have connected with music is its ability to reach inside and speak deeply to those emotions within, even when you subconsciously resist them throughout the course of your daily life. Music can articulate many things: pain, sorrow, catharsis and elation; some of my favourite tracks are the ones that bring tears to my eyes and a lump to the throat.
Often the artists who make this have gone through things that may be unimaginable to many, and the process of writing about it draws out the beauty and innovation of the craft. There have been many fancy literary quotes thrown about to the extent of ‘all great art is born from suffering’ and none probably articulates this better in 2024 than American post-hardcore rockers Planes Mistaken For Stars latest album Do You Still Love Me?
Founded in Illinois in 1997 by lead singer and guitarist Gared O’Donnell and guitarist Matt Bellinger, the band relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1999 and recorded a series of albums that would see them go on to tour with the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan and High On Fire. Despite the momentum, Bellinger would leave in 2006 ahead of their Mercy album and the band would go on to break up after completing their touring commitments in 2008.
Despite this, they began sporadically playing shows again in 2010 and in 2016 released their first material in a decade in the form of the album Prey. In 2017, news broke of ex-founding member Bellinger’s death. Years passed following Prey, and on November 25th 2021, the band would confirm that O’Donnell had died from esophageal cancer. In the statement, they confirmed that the band had been working on one final album and in the run-up to his death O’Donnell had been writing and recording throughout the last year of his life.
It is with this long shadow that Do You Still Love Me? finally sees the light of day. It is a record written with the death of a friend in the background, written in Peoria despite the forced isolation of global lockdowns, O’Donnell’s chemo and radiation treatment, and the band’s own reactions to the impending, unthinkable future without their frontman.
The resulting 13-track album is as raw and as visceral as anything they have recorded and every barbed or biting lyric, every squeal of frustrated guitar, and angry smash of the drums (all captured masterfully by the high priest of sonic disruption Sandford Parker) cast a haunting, vital light on the album when you know that it is sung by a man no longer here, aware of the marching inevitability of his mortality.
Wasting absolutely no time tearing into psychic wounds Do You Still Love Me? opens with the gleefully macabre Matthew Is Dead, mourning the departed Billinger.
Immediately, thumping drumming fights with ringing reverb, O’Donnell’s rasping half-spoken, half-spat vocals repeat the title over and over, before the mantra-like screaming of ‘You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead’ as the track seethes and writhes with naked emotion. The stabbing riffs and low chugs give the track a loathing feel that breaks down into the sound of guttural screams and breaking glass amongst the lo-fi noise-rock.
With their final album, Planes Mistaken For Stars have created an intriguing smörgåsbord of sounds that looks to cement their legacy…
Fix Me starts with a deep chug and nagging notes with more low growling intonations before breaking out into a delirious surf punk style riff with spiralling lead notes and a hypnotic, angular guitar solo that almost sounds heroic if not for the low, multi-layered vocals repeating the title over again. The mournful ‘fix me soon’ takes on a more powerful impact when you realise that for all the powers of modern medicine, some things can’t be fixed and as the pleading ‘Just say you love me…’ refrain emerges from the maelstrom, the desperate edge sinks in.
Further and Arrow are a pair of upbeat tracks, the squalling guitar of the former has a slamming, urgent groove and speeds by in a violent rush. The latter is even more breakneck and approaches mania despite the catchy hooks and rousing gang-style chorus, whereas Modern Logic is a lush indie-style, pop-like number with bright melodies and an upbeat feel as the band creates a warm, comforting bounce.
Punch The Guage brings the atmosphere down instantly. Almost industrial in flavour, the gothic tones over crisp drum tattoos lead to some glorious big rock moments before it descends into chaotic screams and more breaking glass that calls back to the angst of the opening number.
Part one of the two ’title tracks’ is a heavy, murky down-tuned number that stomps with ominous overtones and features the portentous line ‘I don’t have the shakes, the shales have me’. Brooding and dark as hell, it retains the feel of the previous track whilst, under the surface, the moody feel is almost suffocating, unlike the last track Part 2, which is warm and beautifully peaceful, reprising the refrain.
Run Rabbit Run snaps out of this funk, the ebb and flow of the album seemingly mirroring the seesaw of treatment and relief that must have played a huge factor in the writing of the material and the band welds poppy moments of ringing melodies onto the creeping cynicism.
Peace dances with a languid swinging rhythm, before Put Your Heart On The Fire is a mid-paced, swirling post-rock hum contrasting with the crawling, unsettling The Calming before the penultimate track, In Hell, is one last vicious attack of colliding punk, post-hardcore and histrionic rock as O’Donnell refuses to go quietly into the long goodnight.
For all the tragedy of Do You Still Love Me? for it to work as an album, it needs to stand on its merits without the context surrounding the lyrics for the casual listener. With their final album, Planes Mistaken For Stars have created an intriguing smörgåsbord of sounds that looks to cement their legacy and pays tribute to their departed frontman. It’s dusty in here right now.
Label: Deathwish Inc.
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Twitter | Instagram
Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden
