“Hell is inside us“, is a phrase that has adorned several melodies as a verse.
But it is also a phrase used quite often by psychologists and sociologists to describe the perception of events around us.
What we perceive as reality and the limits we set around us are what actually exists.
The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan explained all this in just one sentence:
“Once you see the limits of your environment, they are no longer the limits of your environment.“
Understanding all these limits, one realizes that it is a state of our own mind.
Despair, which occupies many, even temporarily, is simply the inability to realize one’s own limits.
Not being able to understand that he has made his own shell or emotional shell, in order to defend himself against some imaginary fear.
The basic material for the construction of an external hard shell is despair, which theoretically protects the sensitive interior.
But what he manages is not to let the light enter, but also not to externalize the inner essence of the entity.
However, notes always have an answer and are the “passkey” for any kind of problem.
A musician, like Sifting, is well aware of all this with the 9th song of their second full-length album, “Infinite Loop“, which was released via Eclipse Records.
Their song deals with the issue of despair, which is lyrically a “dive” into the depths of the soul.
We are talking about “Emotionless Shells“, created by the band’s guitarist and singer Eduardo Osuna Gil and bassist Winston Jarquin.
Although the song has not yet been played live, the band is looking forward to sharing it on stage.
Emotionless Shells
As I mentioned before, the song talks about the despair one feels in a dystopian environment.
A despair that arises from the lack of justice in everything that happens around us.
Eduardo reveals to us, that:
“When the world begins to collapse under your feet, then you realize that there is a lot out there.“
Outside the “emotional shell” in which most of us live.
It is an emotion that the guitarist knows very well, as he experienced the loss of his mother and grandmother in a plane crash.
This tragic event pushed him to create “Emotionless Shells“.
Proving that the notes are the key to “escape” from any dark “shell“.
The beauty of languages, like Greek, is that they often reveal deeper meanings through the etymology of a word.
For example, the word “problem“, which means “anything that is projected as a protrusion, an obstacle…“, but also what is seen.
According to Eduardo, “there is a system that leads us to a mental collapse.”
It creates societies structured based on the divide of people, leading to unhealthy introversion with the emotional shell covering them.
Essentially through stereotypical ideas, cleverly formed, it leads each member of a society to form such, many times, thorny shell.
However, every problem is accompanied by a solution and as the musician points out, “all kinds of limitations are only within us“.
We, individually, can break the stereotypical rules and fears that bind us to a past, like a weight.
By removing all of this from our lives, we can look forward to a brighter future.
Breaking the restrictions
The music of “Emotionless Shells“, comes to complete the lyrics.
Fast and aggressive, tries to wake up the listener in order to break this emotional shell.
Wants to help the person to use this awakening as a hammer that can break all these limitations.
Although the melody was written almost along with the lyrics, it essentially follows them.
But also the other creator of the composition Winston Jarquin, lived the personal drama, which turned into a fight.
In particular, the bassist, at the time of the song’s creation, had been isolated from his children after a, probably not so easy separation.
Strict and blind state laws are always in favor of the mother, in all corners of the world.
However, Winston’s long and difficult struggle to take care of them or even to see them was not in vain.
And as it turned out in the end, no fight is lost, since he won, managing not to be alienated from them.
All members of the band have children, essentially single-parent families.
This exemplifies the fact that everything is possible if you look ahead.
But also that music can solve many problems, it is enough to just believe in it.