Send Me Home

The Struggle

If you put Demon Hunter, Aaron Sprinkle, Akira Yamaoka (mostly in the first track), and a slice of a variety of other sounds in a blender and set the mode to “mosh” you might come out with something similar to Send Me Home. Using sounds that might be associated with any number of different genres they concoct a blend that puts a warm feeling in the pit of this old metalhead.

I can’t say that their mix of sounds always works as well as I would like it to; at the same time it often works far better than I expected it would when I first sat down to listen to The Struggle. A sense of structure and progression that compliments the deeply personal and spiritual lyrics gives the whole project a poetically moving effect.

The sound feels thin at times especially when the deep, resounding bass becomes shallow when I don’t think it should be. Yet the reason I might prefer more consistency with the bass tones is precisely because I can’t get enough of the fullness of the sound they’ve created. Even with its minor failings I find myself pulled into the progression of changes in tones and rhythms.

The theme of the album is just what the title suggests. It begins with wondering if God is listening which becomes an acknowledgment of the human failings that block our path to righteousness. The mood begins to fluctuate between helplessness in the fallen nature of humanity and the hope that God gives: from a submission to God to a lament at the difficulty “to be everything that you’re asking of me.”

I suggest this EP for when you are caught up in your own struggles. Sometimes a song can be so hopeful that I feel like the writer doesn’t fully understand my difficulties when other times something can be so hopeless that it may serve to deepen despair unnecessarily. Send Me Home knows that life can be rough but ultimately God is bigger than our failures and troubles. Even after “so many restless nights” “we are not left without hope.”