I Hate Myself - 3 Songs (2005)

Band; I Hate Myself

Album: 3 Songs

Year: 2005

Country: United States

When I choose albums to write about on this blog I try to find albums that are "fresh" or albums that I think deserves more listeners. Very "hipsterish" I know but I just find it more interesting that way. This time we'll try something different. Anyone who consider themselves to be a fan of the emo-genre have most likely already stumbled across I Hate Myself. I guess you can say that they are kind of a "gateway-band" to the genre. This is the last record that the Marburger brothers ever recorded under the name I Hate Myself, since then they have been performing in other bands such as Burnman and Die Hoffnung.

The album was released as a one-sided LP containing three songs (well duh!) and is inspired by the life of Roy Sullivan. Roy Sullivan was a park ranger who lived in Virginia, United States. Between the years 1942-1977 Roy was hit by lightning on seven various occasions but amazingly enough he survived all of them. Eventually people started avoiding the man, afraid that they too would get hit by lightning. That made him very sad of course and on the 28th of September 1983, at the age of 71, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the stomach. I have heard other stories saying he shot himself because his wife left him but it's a very sad story anyway.

"Sadness" is very strongly represented on this album. Unlike earlier releases by I Hate Myself these three songs are very mellow and not as spastic as other songs. Apart from some screaming on the first song Roy Sullivan, By Lightning Loved the lyrics are smoothly sung through the whole album, making this a very soft album compared to they're previous releases. But according to me this is by far the best songs that this band ever recorded. The songs, the aesthetic and the theme of the album is just so perfectly fit together. Apart from that I think that the song is by far the best Jim Marburger has ever sung on a I Hate Myself release, I don't even miss the desperate screaming and the pitiful whining from previous songs.

Whenever I get in the mood for some I Hate Myself this is the record I always put on and I find it very hard to part from it. Not that I would ever want to.

Song(s) you should listen to: My favorite is definitely Roy Sullivan, By Lightning Loved. The middle part is really soothing and that one hit on the snare drum right before the song kicks off at 2:35 always makes me smile. From there the song just pours itself over you with emotion.

The Lightning Says. I can't stop thinking that the last words I Hate Myself ever sung was "I love you, love me too". Brilliant, just brilliant.

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