“It was like these songs were puzzle pieces kept in the dark with truths I didn’t know I needed to hear about myself. The dusty corners no longer so dusty. The tracks hurt. But hurt in a way that feels earned. Mine, but also theirs. Yours.”

I was fully in my burned-cd-Good-Charlotte-scrapbook-studded-belts-emo-haircuts era and no one could stop me. I dressed in as much black as I could– stripes and studs, spikey earrings from Claires– you know the ones. If anyone asked, I’d say in the most deadpan and serious tone, “I’m PUNK. I’m GOTH.” and vanish like a bat in the night with melodrama and flair. 

They also don’t tell you that even though you may have the perfect playlists and the most perfectly worn Doc Martens and drug store eyeliner, the becoming in the coming of age isn’t just a film reel montage.

It’s a holy sacrament only few know the taste of. Its grace in melody and chords; softness and a bullet wound wrapped in sacred linen. 

The power lies in building a throne from all the mental static and says, “here, wear the damn crown anyway”. With this track, Culli. gives you permission to crash out for a second,

As we always say here at the band-aid mixtape, music=memory. Music is deeply personal for the past, present and future. This track has actively created new memories and sensory experiences in real time.

Taking raw emotion and pain and turning into something a total stranger can relate to is, in my most humble opinion, the Lord’s Fucking Work. Please put that in the NYT.

It's as if Post Animal vibrates between worlds where rock meets relaxation. These are two main things I look for in music, and they deliver on both in spades.

The chorus rolls and settles in your bones like desert fog— soft, steady, and a little haunting,

If Golden Line was the pulse of the album, Back On You is the bleeding, beating heart of it all. The support system of family– chosen and otherwise– being the balm, the crutch to heartache

If Link is the feeling of being six drinks in, hair taped to your face in sweat, dancing unapologetically on the dancefloor, then Potion is the cool down– the come down– to the first three songs.