The album that made me appreciate my own company

“It’s  just me, how I’m living now. These are the things I’m dealing with, with people in my life right now. It’s open and honest in a different way” is the overall message frontman Dustin Payseur conveys as the theme of Beach Fossil’s debut album, Somersault, that was released just last year, and I think Payseur’s connotation is what made this album so comforting and therapeutic to me my first semester of college.

Being an out of state student, especially the environmental transition from the Southern culture of Texas to the fast paced metropolitan lifestyle of Boston, is extremely overwhelming and feels like living on another planet away from what was once previously deemed as my comfort zone. I immediately felt the presence of an independent lifestyle when I first arrived in August, and at first it was fun to explore my newfound environment by myself, but when I delved 3 more months into the semester without making any friends, the city became daunting and my sense of confidence shrinked immensely.

My first semester taught me what complete self isolation felt like, with having no one to talk to and waking up every morning depending on yourself. The only sense of company I had and what kept me mentality afloat was listening to music. Beach Fossils, one of my favorite alternative bands of all time, hadn’t released an album since Clash the Truth in 2014, so when Somersault ended their 4 year music hiatus, I streamed the album nonstop on a daily basis until I realized the album really applied to all the negative emotions I was feeling. The sense of relatability present in this album made me feel like I had the company of an intangible friend.

In an interview with Noisey for Vice, Payseur alludes to the album representing self reflection and personal development while acknowledging one’s mistakes in order to see “things that I could be doing better. Where I’ve failed. I’m seeing where I could be a better person. I think it’s really important to admit that. Not even in art, but to yourself.” This theme of personal growth is prominent in the opening track “This year” with its melancholy steady guitar chords focusing on starting a new year by getting rid of old habits like becoming “a better friend” and trying “not to fall back onto the knife.”

There’s a sense of subtle hopelessness throughout the album seen in songs like “Sugar” with its triple repetitive chorus of  “I’m lost in” and “I’m feeling nothing” and in “Saint Ivy” with its blend of the violin and electric guitar encompassing Payseur’s soft vocals on having nothing to rely on physically and spiritually with his depiction of loneliness in “ Don’t believe in Jesus/ Heaven knows I’m wasting my time.”

Yet, out of all the eleven tracks on the album, the song that personally felt like it was written for me and my personal desolation in Boston was “Down the line.” The song represents a lyrical outlet towards Payseur’s feeling of depression and not knowing how to handle it or express what he’s feeling to his friends and family. Though the song feels like a let down in the chorus with “These days I feel like I do nothing right,” there is a obscure conveyance of optimism and being able to overcome depression, exemplified with the harmonizing woodwind instruments in the song and Payseur’s repetitive chorus of, “So come with me and we’ll go down the line.”

Somersault is the first time I listened to an album and felt like it perfectly transcribed every emotion and thought in my brain. Maybe I felt so connected with it because of Payseur’s similar emotions and background. Payseur too made the move from his hometown in North Carolina to Brooklyn and said to the Fader “it’s hard to not get emotional when that’s the place you call home.”  Taking on a city alone, thousands of miles away from home and close friends, is a major challenge, but Payseur finds Brooklyn to be his “favorite place in the world” with it giving him “a ton of creative energy and always keeps me moving forward.”

Payseur’s display of being able to take on loneliness and find a silver lining in stimulating his creative endeavors inspired me to snap out of my negativity and use my creative environment at Emerson to my fullest potential to become closer to my career endeavors. Somersault lyrically proves that there is nothing wrong with appreciating one’s own company. I’ve learned once you learn to become comfortable with yourself it results in a rise of self confidence and a more positive state of mind.