Album Review: The Spider Accomplice - The Venomous Montage

The montage. A staple of 80s movies, what better way was there to condense time into a singular moment that told a lifetime's worth of story as fast as the frames of film could pass through the camera? The montage was an admission there is more to us and our stories than we can ever tell on our own. The details of life are what make us who we are, but they are too much for any other person to bear the full weight of. We abridge our stories so we can make ourselves known, always keenly aware that information will expand as soon as it hits the vibrating energy of our minds. Our stories are, in essence, like those old sponge toys that grew when you sprayed them with the garden hose.

The Spider Accomplice embrace the power of the montage for their first full-length album, as it does exactly what is promised (and what I had secretly thought possible - though without any foreknowledge); this collection of songs condenses the last few years of the band's whirling creativity into a single document of the past, present, and future, tied together.

Each song on this album takes us in a different direction, to a different point on the orbit we take around each other. Sometimes, we return to familiar territory, while at other times we find ourselves looking into the cosmos for the specks of star dust that will complete us.

In the opening "Breathing Daydreams", VK sings "there's no looking back anymore." The album starts with the end of the montage, where the band, glistening with the sweat of their heroic training, stands triumphant atop the stairs, their outline drawn in black against the golden glow of the sun. But how did they get there?

That is answered with the rest of the album, where we travel through their history to visit important moments, seeing how they echo through time. The album uses its scope to revisit several of the singles released in the time since the "Los Angeles" trilogy ended. "Crawl", "Keep", and "Clinging To Your Skin" appear again, showing the genesis of the band's current skin. "The Dichotomy" was, metaphorically, VK and Arno shedding their initial skin for something far brighter and more dazzling. These songs that came later were the pigment darkening, spotting that exterior with lines and brush strokes seemingly drawn by God herself.

"Crawl" remains one of the most remarkable examples of the modern power ballad, blending pounding drums and VK's immense vocal power into a force that can indeed scream across the landscape of nature as she does in the similarly remarkable video. That song, more than even the others, is where VK and Arno began to hit so hard the chain holding the heavy bag could no longer hold up against their power.

"Fight" is the natural follow-up to that idea, where our heroes are feeling invincible, and are ready to take on all comers. It's a spunky, cocky little song where VK belts and Arno shreds, showing off while the competition catches their breath off to the side. The camera pans over and sees narrow eyes glaring with jealousy as the hierarchy is revealed.

That is when we travel all the way back to the beginning, to see just how far our heroes have come. A new version of "Butterflies In A Beehive" is that fulcrum, taking a familiar favorite and adding in the sounds and textures the band has developed in the years since we first heard it. Arno's guitars have more texture, and crunch with a heavier tone that sets the strings as the subtle depth giving us a swell we don't always notice until we can feel it reverberating in our chests. Great songs are great songs, and seeing how this one has emerged from its chrysalis to spread its wings as an immense and dramatic number tells us just how far we have traveled together, even as the journey has felt so short.

On "Kaleidoscope", VK sings that "the Queen is out for blood," and indeed she is. The song is as sprawling as the fractals that determine our vision, deconstructing composition in an act of chaos not unlike the mad cackle she unleashes when the song is ready to explode. Their confidence seeps through, as it has grown track by track. And what would any proper montage be without an 80s soundtrack? That's what "Fire The Sorrow" provides, with synths that echo from that formative decade. The only difference between this song and "Blinding Lights" is the number of streams each one is going to get.

"Maybe I've forgotten where I was, or maybe I've never really known," VK says to open "Shards Collect". Our montage ends with our heroes reflecting on the journey that has taken them to this point, understanding every scene in between is important for forging us into the people we are. While some of those shards continue to stab at us, the wounds never fully healing, we would not be the same people without them. Pain guides us as much as a moral compass can, and it is harder to ignore. We do not have to be defined by those moments, but they are a source of fuel. The question is whether we drag the charcoal across our skin to trace our scars, or whether we burn it to light our path to a better place.

A montage takes those questions and boils them down to a reel of highlights, skipping over the existential crises and stop-and-start failures that litter the highway as the tires try to dig into the cold asphalt. There is a beginning and an end, and often we forget what comes in the middle, even though it is the hero's journey that defines the very nature of the epic story. What "The Venomous Montage" does so well is remind us of that fact, spending forty minutes taking us through every step of the journey, so we understand exactly what it took to achieve glory. In movies, montages condense the story so we don't have to face the immensity of the struggle head-on. Here, the montage condenses the story so we can measure the distance traveled more easily.

We've come a long way, and this venomous stop tastes pretty sweet.