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That Which Has Wrought Great Anxiety

by Pretty Lousy

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Danielle Cregan
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Danielle Cregan Uncomfortably real. The kinds of feelings that most of us don't want to admit to but all of us feel at some point. For those of us who revel in those feelings, this is perfection. Favorite track: Get Weird / Get Fucked / Get Gone.
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1.
The sky, at best, is a speckled mess of blue and black and birds headed west and I can't help but watch them fly out of my sight. It's funny how intentions can change from confidence to cowardice in the course of a day but we all have our own ways of dealing with escape. Cry yourself to sleep without waking your roommates. We hold hands like kids hold cigarettes: clumsy, unbecoming, preemptive regret. I want you to miss me as much as I miss you. These promises I made to the walls of my room-- I broke them all in two. The air turns cold and warm and cold again, don't you know that nothing is constant? Everyone in power here will someday fall, everything in motion here will someday stall. Don't walk away from me when I'm trying to talk. You say you have my number but you never call. Don't you know that nothing is constant? Don't you know that everything good ends? I'm not waiting here forever, that much is clear. I've had one foot out of the door for going on twenty-something years. Only so many people I love can up and go before this little town feels less like home. The growing distance between friends, the fears that we're becoming our parents. The chemical imbalance in your head can't be blamed for all the things you never said. The doctors told you you had nine years left if you let it all go unchecked. Well guess what? It's been ten years since you said, you said you've never see him again. The air turns cold and warm and cold again, don't you know that nothing is constant? Everyone in power here will someday fall, everything in motion here will someday stall. Don't walk away from me when I'm trying to talk. You say you have my number but you never call. Don't you know that nothing is constant? Don't you know that everything good ends?
2.
Control 02:48
Lately I've been spending more time in my car, I keep the engine running but I don't go far. Lately I'm compulsively checking my phone for news, good or bad, rolling in from home. Lately I've been loving waking up all alone, at seven every morning, the sun shines in my window. Lately I've been dreaming I've been losing my teeth, a lapse in your breathing means a lapse in sleep. Do you feel wrong? Do you feel absolved? Did you make the right call? Do you feel at all? Lately I've been writing with these broken strings but if you ask me what I'm thinking, I'll say "not a thing". Lately I've been spending time crossing lakes. I always feel better in another state. Lately I've been taking more walks with my knife, looking over my shoulder through the evening light. Lately I've been listening for patterns in speech, it's a code that I have broken set in place to destroy me. Control -- feel it take hold. Fear -- let it die right here. Fate -- it's written on your face. Concern -- tell me son, what have you learned?
3.
Third Act 01:31
I read your mood out loud in the kitchen to some friends with the reluctance of a child and the stutter of a student on a stage in front of peers in a public-speaking class last day of freshman year and on the verge of collapse or the summary on the back of a book I never read that I borrowed from a lover and then lent to a friend who used it as a coaster until the spine began to bend and the pages came detached as the wind began to send the story out of order to an unexpected end like that paycheck in your pocket that you know won't cover rent or the aching in your chest when they won't get out of bed, much less look you in the eye for longer than a second until you begin to lie about what you want for dinner or how you lost the keys that you made in September when you moved to a city that you thought would give you hope but it only left a lesion where your love used to grow. I know this can't go on forever. Yea, some things have to change. Devotion driven by doubt is a loaded gun in the first act of a play. I read your mood out loud today to get your story straight.
4.
Try not over-sleep. Try not to over-eat. Try not to call in sick. Try not to quit. Try not to drive too fast or off a bridge or an overpass. Try not to call her, but when you do try not to falter. Try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be kind. Try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be happy. Try not to talk too much. Try not to lean on your crutch. Don't cry in the bathroom. Try not to die too soon. Try to forgive those friends who won't call you for weeks on end. Forgive this town for failing at its best, you might as well blame the sun for setting in the west. Try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be kind. Try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be, try to be happy.
5.
Foul ball in flight. Warm, speckled light. Barefoot on a carpet, brown hair in your eyes. Peppermint Tea leaves. Cupboards that creak. These fantasies betray me like poorly tailored seams. I remember when it all shifted. Took everything you had and gave back nothing. And what they say about me is completely true. In love with the pursuit but too afraid to catch you. I can't explain my motivations for pushing you away, for my seclusion. You could disregard the pain and call it selfish but I remember when we sang a common chorus. I am alone because I choose to stay alone. I am afraid because I choose to stay afraid. We live on borrowed time. Someday I will die and there is nothing waiting for me on the other side. Yet, still I hesitate and repeat past mistakes I know I'll never learn my lesson until its too late. And by the time the summer storms were over the dam up in the mountains couldn't hold the water. I just laid down in the street and waited for it to take me as it washed the city clean, a quiet, violent victory.
6.
Call Me Out 02:41
Dislodge me, work me free. Watch me as I'm pulled away out and underneath. It's not like me. No, this isn't me. Call me, call me out on every single word I say and the blood I carry in my mouth. It's not like me. No this isn't me. If you want to watch everyone disappear then just stop drinking. If you want to get on my level then hurry up and start sinking. Measuring the youth you wasted by a clock on your bed that just keeps blinking off and on and off and on and off and on again. Are you alright?
7.
I watched you, I watched you part from the crowd as you became, as you became the person you are now. The needles, the needles, they make my mattress in the forest, on the forest floor where I'm living now. No, I don't believe in god. Or blame my boots for the faults of my feet. If you wait here long enough you can lose your faith in anything.
8.
Hollow 03:07
I don't care where you've been. I don't care what you've done. I don't give a fuck about who you love. I don't care about you or anyone. Hollow. I don't want to go to work but I can't afford to stay at home. I don't want to talk to anyone but I don't want to be alone. Hollow. I don't care.
9.
Speed Ricer 05:55
Master and Everyone spun on the stereo you kept by your bedroom window. The one that led to the roof where you kept the booze safe and cold under inches of snow. I was home, all alone when you called me at a quarter to one in the morning in the middle of a storm. I almost died six or seven times on my way to your house with all of the lights out except for yours like the cover of that record we both adored. Cap n' Jazz, Small Brown Bike, Elliott, Eluvium and On the Might of Princes So many nights spent on your couch, drunk and laughing long after the lights went out. I still remember the mornings I would skip my classes and your dad, he made us breakfast and we talked about our band as if we even had a chance to escape from this town we loved to talk shit about. The stupid jokes, blood-shot eyes, badly-aimed high-fives. Those bottles we killed in your room and how it felt to be 22. December's Tragic Drive, we'll taste it, we'll taste it in time.
10.
A Way Out 04:19
The days die and fade into the ether. Her face, the contours of her shape I can't remember. You found a way out, it's a long way down. This chance, these lines that we trace can't define you. They can't define you. Just name a time and place and I will find you. I will find you. I found a way out, it's a long way down. Just say when.

about

The fourth full-length album by Pretty Lousy aka Justin Passino, formerly known as For the Kid in the Back. 10 more songs about being terrified and sad. Nervous breakdowns on the road. Crying in the bathroom at work. Telephone conversations in parking lots. Afternoons and evenings in the Emergency Room. Looking over your shoulder while walking after dark. Letters half-read. People you'll never see again.

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Matt Hall in Plattsburgh, NY throughout 2015 & 2016.

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released June 19, 2016

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Pretty Lousy Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Pretty Lousy is the DIY effort of Justin Passino, a singer/songwriter currently residing in Lehigh Valley, PA.

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