Everything Starts Where it Ends

Lovedrug- Everything Starts Where It Ends
Album Review by Mark Wampler 598 Words

Lovedrug fans have learned a lesson or two in patience waiting for their beloved Ohio based band to release a follow up to 2004’s Pretend You’re Alive. After becoming the fastest selling act ever with their Sony affiliated label The Milita Group, the band was signed to Columbia records and had high hopes to release their latest effort, Everything Start’s Where It Ends with them. Columbia found themselves forced to make serious cutbacks, putting Lovedrug back into the ranks of Militia Group. This setback has not stopped them from putting out a good, solid record.

In an interview with AbsolutePunk the bands front man, Michael Shepard said, “I think almost all of the songs on Everything Starts Where it Ends could be a short film or something. The stories are so specific and situational and that makes them so picturesque. I like that about them.” With lyrics like “you are sugar sweet / so fine I’d like to eat” and “your apples poison seed / will be the end of me” coming at you in Happy Apple Poison, the albums opening track, it is clear why Shepard would feel this way. The song opens with characteristic Lovedrug, haunting guitar followed by Shepard’s secretive and seductive vocals. What comes next will catch you off guard. The chorus throws you into unfamiliar territory, shadowing that this record will be even more of an emotional journey than the last. Shepard finally, just comes out and says it on the track Thieving. “Would you believe me if I told you / that I'm surfacing for just one thieving moment / to steal your heart?” While this album is dark and moody, songs like Castling, Doomsday and the Echo and, the apt titled Dancing, bring life and motion to your heart and your feet. The tighter, more layered, sound can be attributed to the bands change in songwriting approach. “The writing process was just way different this time around,” Shepard explains in an interview. “There was less of the spontaneity that took place on Pretend, where I’d tend to just sit at the piano and write. On this record everything’s more methodical.” This is evident in the sometimes, verse-chorus-break format, the biggest flaw with the album. The repetitive format will at times, make you feel like you are running through mud, not getting anywhere with your investment of emotion. But the end of the record more than pays up for it.
Hands down, the best songwriting of the new album is the track Salt of the Earth where Shepard declares, “all is lost if heaven fails us.” The song begins with an angry, marching piano part that culminates in the break of the song, which finally gives your emotions rest. It achieves the powerful effect of reflection, making that idea of heaven sink linger and sink into your being.
The album title is also the title of the last song on the record. Everything Starts Where It Ends is a reference to the idea that it all comes back to love. It is the only thing that is able to satisfy our hungry and searching hearts.
The album closes with the words

“Here we are again love
Here we go again
By your side I can't pretend anymore.
Now everything starts where it ends.”

Love is indeed, where it starts, and where it ends and when you’re done listening, you will want to go back and make sure that you heard it right, and then discover it all again.