ENAVE – “Skeletons”: The Quiet Audacity of Letting the Bones Fall
When ENAVE walks into a room, ENAVE comes to exist in the room. When there is static flowing under concrete it’s the same feeling. A drunken night having beer and then hearing parts of what you did not know the night actually were. The way this project has always worked is as a puzzle piece unraveling a coded message of where you have not allowed yourself to venture into. The parts of yourself you keep walled off, the hallways where your memories have developed teeth. "Skeletons" is a choice ENAVE makes to allow the viewer/listener to be surrounded by blackness while allowing it breathing space and allowing it to express its feelings.
You start listening to this song and start hearing confessions being made through ash. ENAVE sings from a place of desperation for survival. The movie has a cinematic build to the moment but the tension is of a completely different type of build than you would typically be witness to. This is the type of tension that happens with a door that is only half-opening and only partially busted and something that is living and moving around the inside of that room has been doing so for years upon years. ENAVE embraces this rawness, holding the listener in a tender way while helping them walk through this collapse that seems to be almost a return home.
While listening to the song “Skeletons” for 5 minutes and 9 seconds, it feels more like a psychological sound ritual than a song, as the beats of the music land on the listener as if they were listening to the sound of their own heart beating. The guitars are played with a heavy touch, casting a shadow over the listener, while the vocal melody is sung with a trembling and sharp quality, similar to how you feel when you breathe out after holding your breath, and the sound is like a huge release of stress. You also hear how much the previous songs of this artist influenced the sound of the new song, through the pain expressed in the lyrics of “The Time,” the emotion expressed in the lyrics of the song and how it led to a feeling of being awakened at last. As a result, this song represents the point where the walls of the labyrinth are taken down completely and the artist is liberated to express themselves.
There are many different notes and sounds that make up the musical texture of “Skeletons.” In fact, the notes have an aural quality of regret, as well as the aural sensation of a tape replaying itself, and the cold feelings of clarity, which only appear in the aftermath of a complete devastation. ENAVE's lyric, "I don't hide skeletons anymore; I let them fall," comes across with an authenticity that one can feel in their soul.
The irony however, is that rather than expressing despair, buried in the remains of the destruction, there is permission. Permission to stop running. Permission to break your boundaries. Permission to reinvent.
Finally, ENAVE, with their unique and bold personality, has created a final realization that each skeleton you are afraid of can serve as a new way to reconnect back to who you are.