You were the obvious one...
A few days before No Closer to Heaven came out in 2015, I downloaded a .ZIP of it and was convinced I'd gotten a bad rip. I hadn't. Apparently, quite a few fans (and even the band themselves) hated it more than I did. I got used to it very quickly and forgot about it until this remixed/remastered anniversary version was announced recently. It dropped today, and it does not disappoint.
Anyone who knows me has heard me wax poetic about The Wonder Years ad nauseum over the past 12 years. Their songs changed my life unlike any other art I've ever experienced. When I heard the lyrics to "There, There" for the first time, it was like the proverbial scales fell from my eyes. I'd been obsessed with a lot of music about depression, but here was a record all about anxiety. Here was someone singing about the kind of perpetually terrified existence I'd long given up hope of changing, ceding much of my personality to bitterness and cynicism. There was hope here. There was vulnerability. As someone who had a habit of disassociating by staring off in the middle distance, hearing someone sing "I know how it seems when I'm always staring off into nothing. I'm lost in my head again." was revelatory.
The time between The Greatest Generation coming out and the release of No Closer to Heaven saw me get into therapy for my OCD (due to Dan's lyrics and both comedian Maria Bamford and a friend of mine openly discussing their OCD around the same time). I was medicated and beginning what would end up being a very intense decade-plus of healing work, so at the time NCTH came out, I felt better than I ever had.
At the time, my own brother was going through some struggles with anxiety, and what I'd learned in the previous two years allowed me to give him some guidance. My friend group at the time had taken a new shape that would burn brightly and wonderfully for a few years and further lead me in the direction my life has gone. I had started a new band that would go on to be more successful than I could have expected. It was a very important time in my life, and the themes of this record resonated with all of it.
I've grown to love the charm of the original's production. It's muddiness gave it a melancholy that makes it distinct from this new version, but this remix is so crisp and clean. It sounds enormous. It's like hearing this record for the first time.
But there's one very new, very melancholy aspect to it. If this had come out a year ago, I'd have messaged my friends Jim and Jessie about it immediately (if they didn't message me first). Both of them shared a similar connection to The Wonder Years as I do. They would've loved it. They both died by suicide earlier this year, which, given some of the lyrical content, makes this album a hard listen:
I'm sure there ain't a heaven
But that don't mean I don't like to picture you there
I'll bet you're bumming cigarettes off saints
And I'm sure you're still singing
But I'll bet that you're still just a bit out of key
That crooked smile pushing words across your teeth'
Cause you were heat lightning
Yeah, you were a storm that never rolled in
You were the northern lights in a southern town
A caustic fleeting thing
I'll bury your memories in the garden
And watch them grow with the flowers in spring
I'll keep you with me
