Welcome February. May your shortness wash away the stains of your predecessor. This month always feels like I dug myself out of a landfill.

I had the no good no sun gloomy January blues. If I had to pick a least favorite month it would hands down be the frigid month of January. It’s probably the month where I battle with depression the most for a multitude of factors. First there’s the holiday hangover, where after a couple of months of feasting and celebration, we’re left in an actual new year and realize nothing’s really changed. In 2025 many people I know are worried about the new administration, or the literal scorched earth in Southern California. In the micro, many folks worry about meeting their personal resolutions while battling seasonal affective disorder. This is of course a very NY centric view of things. There are plenty of places where January is summertime, or a month of Parranda, or the ushering of the Lunar New Year, or the beginning of Carnival season where folks get all the sining out of their system before lent.

That’s not where I am though. I’m in the cold, dark and dirty New York City where most people have run out of cheer. But maybe I’m projecting my own bias towards January. In 1986 during the first week of January, my older brother was killed in a tragic truck accident. As more and more years separate me from that day, I feel guilty for getting to live this long past his life. I never wanted to grow older than him. I feel silly speaking about my feelings towards him and his death. Surely 39 years would have been enough time to grieve his passing. How can I continue to justify weeping and moping about so long after he died? I don’t need to justify shit. How I feel, how I mourn, that’s all mine. But how do I convince myself of what I know to be true? That’s the conundrum at hand. Instead I try to prepare myself for the incoming storm, but I never seem to get it right. Maybe there is no right way.

I have to be vigilant and self aware. I have to be aware that every train delay, and rainstorm aren’t a part of an elaborate plan to keep me down. The universe is not conspiring against me. It’s just “an old voice in my head that’s holding me back”. I can’t take it out on the people who love me enough to try to help when nothing really can.

It doesn’t help much that I stopped smoking as a new year resolution. I haven’t had a single puff in over a month now. This is an achievement that comes with many drawbacks. As my lungs are working overtime to heal the decades of damage inflicted on them, my breathing has been labored and atrocious. I’ve woken up several times in the middle of sleep gasping for air, with a sore diaphragm and an achy back. I have less control of my emotions, so my manic states have been harder to keep in check. I crave a smoke every time I walk my dogs, or eat a meal, or try to poop. I must keep reminding myself that I’m doing something good for my health, because at the moment if feels more like I’m putting myself through torture to try to extract some state secrets from myself. There are no secrets here, only humdrum truths of wheezing bronchial tubes and frighteningly vivid dreams.

I try to listen to music that’ll uplift my moods, but most of the time I just circle back to something depressing that makes me double down on my sorrow. But that’s a bit counter intuitive. I can’t try and force my emotions into submission. Instead I should be acknowledging the realities of these feelings and find music that feels both affirming of my depression, and uplifting with a specter of hope. My last Sunday Morning Records essay was all about hope. How did I lose perspective so easily? Is January too strong a force to combat? Never fear, February’s here.

Of Monsters and Men’s first studio album, My Head Is An Animal, is where I go when I need an honest boost. Its subject matter is all about depression and internal battles, while its music is swooping and uplifting filled with fairytale core,” hey ho" style of chants and glorious horns. When looking for musical help to withstand seasonal depression, Icelandic bands are a great place to start. They know all too well of the suffocating nature of the dark January skies.

This record is an honest conversation about internal turmoil and the desire to come out on top. It doesn’t try to sugarcoat the horrors that dwell in the recesses of our minds, but it doesn’t pair them with musical sounds that one traditionally expects from sad songs. The juxtaposition here is surgical and exact. Follow me down the long wintery road through an exploration of the 2011 album, My Head Is An Animal by Of Monsters and Men.

Side One

1 Dirty Paws is a fable. Pure fairytale core. This song should be the pitch for a fantastical motion picture. I could be about the weak coming together to fight the power. It could be about fighting environmental destruction. Or maybe it’s just about “The story of the beast with those four dirty paws”. What this song does as the first in the album is clearly provide a setting for what is to come. It begins with a simple guitar and breaks into a duet in unison, as the tale begins. Then drums and choral chants and harmony. It builds and lands in such a satisfying crescendo. It makes me excited for the rest of the album every time.

2 King and Lionheart continues the fairytale core, telling the story of separated siblings and their resolve to be together. Distance can separate bodies, but bonds are harder to break. My sadness peaks here. My King is dead, gone, by my lionheart is stronger than death. Our bond will never be broken, just frayed. The chorus enforces this truth;

“Howling ghosts, they reappear

In mountains that are stacked with fear

But you're a king and I'm a lionheart”

3 Mountain Sound is a duet with one voice on the verses and another singing a chorus that fills me with fight and resolve.

“Hold your horses now (we sleep until the sun goes down)

Through the woods, we ran (deep into the mountain sound)"

This song gallops along as strongly as the horses ride towards the mountain sounds.

Side Two

4 Slow and Steady Always makes me cry. It tells me that I am stronger than this moment. Tells me that I can feel like the world is crashing down on me, but I’m stronger than the crash. Even though “I move slow and steady” deep inside I know “ I feel like a waterfall”. I flow and crash and flow and crash and continue until I run dry.

5 From Finner is a fantasy about traveling on whaleback looking for adventure in the unknown. It's all about embracing the adventure, and finding joy in it. This song evokes peace in me. Calm. It has this sailor’s waltz quality to the song.

“And we are far from home

But we're so happy

Far from home, all alone

But we're so happy”

6 Little Talks makes me weep. It’s a duet with one person singing about that internal turmoil I’ve been going on about, and another person gently trying to bring the person back from the edge of despair. Was this song written specifically about me? They don’t know me, but they got me so right here. The song starts strong with horns and chants, but the dialogue feels like whisper. The lyrics that always give me a big old wallop in the feels are so sweet and simple.

Nanna sings “There's an old voice in my head, That's holding me back” and Ragnar replies “Well, tell her that I miss our little talks”, and I just fall apart. The sheer love in that response overwhelms me so much that I’m in tears as I type this. I can barely see the screen.

At my lowest I want to shout the chorus to anyone around me:

“Don't listen to a word I say

(Hey)

The screams all sound the same

(Hey)

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore”

If I could send my brother a message, if he could read this, I’d tell him these lyrics always make me think of him.

“You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is a ghost of you”

This song leaves me in such a dreary state, and I play it again and again because the catharsis feels so healing. I know you can’t tell because you’re not here as I write this, but I’m going to need a little break before the next half.

I’m exhausted, but I feel a little better than when I began.

Side Three

7 Six Weeks tells the story of someone fighting animals alone, on their way back home. For me it’s the metaphor of fighting through your own muck on the way back to your home, which is to say, back to your right mind, and open back up to the ones who love you. It’s what February means to me. The space where I tiptoe out of the mindfield back to safety.

8 Love Love Love is an ode to those who stand by us when we’re in too deep to see the love they’re trying to fill us with. I think of my spouse Casey when I listen to it. The way she patiently loves when I’m a mess and am probably not reciprocating the love as well as I should be. The song stops with the lyrics;

“So I think it's best

We both forget

Before we dwell on it

So I think it's best

We both forget

Before we dwell on it”

And after a long pause it picks right back up with the realization that the person is still there;

“The way you held me so tight

All through the night

'Til it was near morning

'Cause you love, love, love

When you know I can't love”

It’s the constant push and pull of the depressive mind, towards the one who is there, trying to guide you to the other side. It’s so hard to see under the fog, but once that lighthouse breaks through and shines on you, you’re able to see all the love that was there the entire time.

I’m a pretty lucky person.

9 Your Bones A tale told through sounds that sound like it was sung at a King’s court by a medieval minstrel on a lute, but when the La La La chorus begins with a horn blowing the melody it has a waltzy type of vibe. It reminds you to “Hold on to what we are, Hold on to your heart”

Side Four

10 Sloom a duet, a song of hope, a plea for love, ends in such a powerful image, “I met a man today and he smiled back at me, Now there are thoughts like these that keep me on my feet”

Isn’t that just finding the small beauties in life that keeps us going into the next day?

11 Lakehouse is about the comforts of home. Powerful building song about chasing the fire away. A longing for what once was. What we wish we can return to. Can’t trust those sneaking foxes.

12 Yellow Light that guides us back. The last song of the album means to get us back to the light. The yellow light that gives life can be dangerous too, but we must follow it out of our darkness. Just as I must follow the yellow light and make my way out. I think I’m ready.

Hope that wasn’t too much of a downer. I don’t think I could’ve written about anything else. But I’m here and so are you, and it might just all be okay. We may begin low, but we can all build into a crescendo. I want to believe this. I want to manifest this into a truth. No matter how much trash talk I sling inward, I believe I can be build into a grand crescendo.

Thanks for joining me on this little adventure. Hope to see you soon at the next Sunday Morning Records. Have a great week friends. Hold strong.