Leaving a considerable impact with their You, Me and Everything In Between album, life’s seemed a little quiet in Belle Haven‘s world. But from a flickering pulse that saw the release of “Forget Me” and then “Moving On”, the Melbourne band have leapt forward, announcing a fresh new EP on the way; Time Changes Nothing releases via Greyscale Records on 16th April. The upcoming EP has single “Nobody Likes A Hospital” as its first taste, and its release is a perfect excuse for an east coast tour of Australia, bringing alt. along with them [get your tickets here].
As exciting as it is to hear new music from the band, “Nobody Likes A Hospital” is not so buoyant, thematically speaking. Anyone who’s ever attended a Belle Haven show will know the vulnerable openness with which vocalist David De La Hoz talks about his mental health. This openness is what we know and love of Belle Haven and it’s a pleasure to absorb this mainstay factor of theirs in the form of something new. The new track takes us inside David’s mind and the experience of being in a psych ward, in particular how well-meaning sentiments from loved ones can warp.
“So vacant, dead inside, but feel alive enough to write“
Sonically speaking, “Nobody Likes A Hospital” is unsettling and full from the start, with (satisfying) wild winds of riffage. It pares back to David’s musings on happiness as well as rebuttals to outside optimism that does not fit his dark perspective at the time. David says “Sometimes the only thing that understands is the paper under my pen,” and the track is absolutely a brain-to-pen surrender. Summed up in the lyric “You’re not in this hole I fell into, you don’t know what I’m going through”, the disconnect in perspectives (and disconnect in terms of support) is made clear.
The erratic and deep instrumentation of the second verse, after the windswept chorus, captures the rocky discomfort of David’s situation. For me it’s the pummeling forces of the climactic bridge that hooks most emotively, before a breathy vulnerability that reiterates the seriousness of the situation. Buried in layers of sound as the song comes to its end, it matches the sense of impossible pressure to get better in a world of disconnect and unease.
Colin Jeffs (Ten Of Swords Media) has captured the tension of a kind of punitive ‘healing’ experience, with an unsolvable puzzle metaphor shared both in the video and the EP artwork [see below]. With the pieces piling up and left alone in the spartan room, perhaps it shows how it feels to hold the weight of a mess of ‘pieces’ and no way to put everything together. No instructions. No help.
It seems almost a guarantee that Time Changes Nothing will offer songs of a similar theme, and I’m keen to find out for sure as the release date comes. Watch “Nobody Likes A Hospital” via YouTube or stream at your favourite places. Pre-orders are available now here: https://grysclrec.lnk.to/bhtime
Time Changes Nothing artwork and track listing
- Take Your Pill
- Mistakes
- Nobody Likes A Hospital
- Hopeless. Empty. Lonely. Painful.
- Stranger Memories
