Won’t Travel Alone, She Traveled With Me: Cinematic Rock from The First Law (originally published in Boog City 100)

A common stereotype of amateur or student-made films is to begin by fading in to the protagonist’s eyes opening, in the morning, to the sound of an alarm clock, before walking into a bleak, redundant, painfully ordinary reality.

At some point in the first act, this reality often becomes just a little bit more interesting; maybe the protagonist gets a promotion at the office, or is invited to join a cult, or falls in love with that mysterious coworker in the neighboring cubicle.

Nyack, N.Y.-based cinematic rock band The First Law’s sophomore album She Traveled With Me, released at the end of 2014, is not a student-made film, and it’s far from stereotypical, but it has a heavy dose of nostalgia and fantastical lyrics.

So, naturally, it begins with what seems like a nostalgic, fantastical homage to the aforementioned stereotype.

The opening track, “I Woke Up,” fades in to the protagonist waking up at two in the morning, to the sound of a passing train. What follows is a slew of flashbacks, stories, thoughts, and dreams, sung by our protagonist over dynamic instrumentation. It all weaves together to form a dense, surreal tapestry of his life, somehow clocking in at under 35 minutes.

In the second track, “Brother Song,” we’re taken to the middle of another night, and another kind of waking up. The protagonist’s baby brother is born, in his grandmother’s apartment during a hurricane. As is revealed in the last verse of the song, the brother has since died, and the protagonist places some of the blame on himself. Whether this is the story l of singer/songwriter/composer/pianist Nate Flaks’s actual brother, a metaphor, or completely fictional, the song brings this story to life, in a fittingly heartbreaking way.

“Oh, baby brother, I didn’t save your life;
I tied the noose I asked you to lean on.”

The third track, “Context & Symmetry,” sees the protagonist in a state of complete agony, mourning a loss; the loss could be of his brother, it could be the loss of the she who traveled with him, or it could be both.

Whatever the case, it’s a loss that’s cut him deeply.

As he makes clear in this song, he doesn’t want to move on; he believes the one he last will come back, and he’s waiting with this pain until it happens.

The abstraction here gives way to a deeper, more universal emotion; is he singing of a younger brother who died, who he hopes will rise from the grave? Is he singing of a lost love, who he hopes will return to his life?

Like most of the album, it resonates with both, and the lyrics and melody can stand alone, outside of the context, no pun intended, of the album, while still playing into the continuous story being told.

“And though it’s the one thing that I own,
I’d trade my ear for a pound of gold;

and if that gold can’t stay,
then I’ll throw it on the silver screen.

If I can’t say what I mean,
let the silence say it for me.”

“The Unconventionalist” is an instrumental interlude; a minimal and haunting piano composition, leading into the title track, where the audience is introduced to the “she” of She Traveled With Me.

A film is being made, and the equipment is described in intricate, poetic detail, along with the eggs being fried for the cast and crew’s breakfast. She is an actor in the film, and a central character to the plot of this story, but her complete mystery might be the most exciting component to her allure; almost nothing is known of this woman, leaving many doors open to the audience’s imagination.

If She Traveled With Me became a film, she might only appear physically in one scene.

One of the only lyrics directly describing her in the whole album refers to her as “nearly invisible” while being filmed in a tent, for a scene in the film involving chromakeying. Chromakeying, ideally, does the opposite of turning someone invisible; it turns a green or blue screen invisible, behind an actor, who remains visible.

On the other hand, poor lighting conditions can cause the actor to stand out less from the background, sometimes making the actor nearly invisible, or making the green or blue screen visible. This can be seen on some public access TV shows and low-budget independent films.

Obscure film terminology aside, it all furthers the notion of a love unbound by material façades. We don’t know what she looks like, we don’t know if the film she’s acting in is any good, but we know how much the protagonist loves her. In fact, while the romance between the two is clearly implied, it’s not even directly stated. If the album’s lyrics were interpreted literally, by a machine, this intense, passionate bond would likely be seen as platonic, a few steps deeper than the narrator’s connection to another friend of his, who dies in the title track.

To human ears, though, the romance is clear, by the time an entire ensemble of singers enters into the mix, repeating “Won’t travel alone, she traveled with me.”

“Something Solid” is a particularly moving song, where the focus turns to the conflict between art and romance, a dilemma many artists face.

“Stawamus Lullaby” closes out the album, with multiple characters singing the narrator back to sleep, to the sound of an acoustic guitar.

“Sleep now, love, without some truth.
Hope is our fiction, but doubt is, too.”

She Traveled With Me is a roller-coaster ride of emotion, packed to the brim with abstract stories and motifs. It’s the kind of concept album that feels more like a movie or a book than music, and there are references to cinema and literature throughout to remind us of this.

Nate Flaks’s piano, vocals, and songwriting are the driving force behind the record, but the studio band, including cellist Natasha Jaffe (recorded in Berlin), and drummer Donald Perdomo (who, coincidentally, plays drums in a band called And The Traveler), adds extra depth and atmosphere to the story.

And the story, in a time of instant solipsistic non-communication, effectively ineffective multitasking, rampant consumerism, and apathy (the causes and effects of which have been critiqued, parodied, and/or acknowledged by almost every living artist in the 21st century), is a refreshing invitation into the timeless, genuine, romantic side of the human condition, and a cathartic reminder of the sorrow and peril that travel with it.

– Jesse Statman

Read more of Cannonball’s coverage of the NYC music scene from this era:

1. Review of The Grasping Straws’ self-titled debut album
2. Profile of Stu Richards, formerly known as Chicken Leg
3. Review of Thomas Patrick Maguire’s In The Bag
4. Review of The First Law’s She Traveled With Me
5. Review of Little Cobweb’s Indelible Marks
6. Review of Zack Daniel’s Memoirs of a Scared Teenager
7. Review of Prewar Yardsale’s Black and Blue
8. Review of Yeti’s Pill
9. Profile of Horra
10. Profile of Lauren O’Brien
11. Review of Nancy Paraskevopoulos’ Comfort Muffin
12. Blurb for The Icebergs’ Eldorado

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