Philadelphia-by-way-of Austin band Blood spent their pandemic living, eating, and working together in a house they rented just before lockdowns, immersed in collaboration. The fruit of that labor, their full-length debut, Loving You Backwards, marks a thematic shift from the overtly political to the personal (although separating the two is silly, isn’t it?), as lead singer and lyricist Tim O’Brien takes an unsparing look at coming to terms with past pain to move on and open himself to new love. It is inspired in part by the weekly mental health check-ins that were part of living together and a newly collaborative songwriting process. Originally, Blood were solely the brainchild of O’Brien, who drafted his bandmates after writing the songs. However, Loving You Backwards is a team effort, a document of a uniquely collaborative season. It shows tremendous growth without alienating listeners captivated by their earlier work.
In a year when many bands have mined their mental health struggles and victories for inspiration, Loving You Backwards takes its place alongside Mannequin Pussy‘s I Got Heaven and Gouge Away‘s Deep Sage as one of the most provocative and unsparing accounts of trying to do better released this year, enhanced by the elusive but evocative lyrics and hazy, dreamy sounds. Think more of blood as a life force coursing through you than something to be shed, and you’ll be close.
While Gouge Away and Mannequin Pussy rage and scream through their pain to powerful effect, Blood’s approach is more subtle. Across its run time, Loving You Backwards builds and occasionally explodes, providing catharsis in sounds more so than shouted lyrics. It sounds more like a balm than the ripping off of a Band-Aid.
A perfect example of this is the opener, “Plowed”, which builds from an organ to full-on bombast, with the line “Tryna get plowed into the next iteration of me” serving as a mission statement of sorts. Similar to how it can take us time to unravel our thoughts to get to the core and deal with it, O’Brien is ripping up the weeds here, preparing for something hopeful to grow in their place. “Oh, Forget” seems to be about putting family trauma to rest, as O’Brien wants to “Burn our branch of the family tree” and decides it doesn’t matter much if his family is forgotten.
O’Brien is a fan of soul music, and like the best Motown artists, he couches his pain in pretty, catchy arrangements and provocative images. However, if you let the sound wash over you without paying attention to the lyrics, you could admire the dynamics of the whole collection and how locked-in the Blood sound without noticing the pain hinted at in the lyrics. “Spaced Out” is one of the highlights of the record, with its slow burn that builds and builds to an explosive midpoint before setting up the dreamy closer “Holy Family” and its hard-won self-acceptance.
“Bone Dry” seems to be about a new relationship developing, while “World Volume” and “Bare” are caught in the throes of new love, the latter of which builds to a cathartic, sensual guitar solo. The press release mentions that O’Brien spent time volunteering in a gay library in Philadelphia during the pandemic and that his time spent reading memoirs and gay literature influenced his approach to lyrics this time out. Inspired by the ways those authors found ways to speak their truths through sublimation and coding, he sought to do something similar, living his truth but filtering it through fractured imagery.
He succeeds mightily, as Loving You Backwards rewards careful listening and requires some study to unpack in the most rewarding and enjoyable ways. This is a headphones-and-liner-notes record that still has some songs to crank up, such as the biting, satiric “TV for a Reason”, which chugs along like a lost early banger from Walkmen. Similar to how this year’s I Saw the TV Glow carries a special significance for many transgender viewers but also has provocative things to say about our relationship with media, Living You Backwards has layers of meaning that are enjoyable to unpack. Still, it can also just be taken at face value as a collection of expertly crafted indie.