Manic At Midnight - Party Fein

Review by Karl Magi

Overall Album Impressions

Manic At Midnight’s “Party Fein” explores a fractured personality in conflict with itself. The struggle between the two halves of one person for control is laid out in music that is gripping, full of drama and exuberantly expressive. As the concept album unfolds, the band takes their time to examine all of the jagged shards that make up this conflicted and deeply damaged character. The way in which all of the elements interact makes for an album that reaches out and takes hold of me emotionally, carrying me along with the story it tells.

At the core of “Party Fein” is the story, which has been well thought out and elucidated by different musical styles as it unfolds. The band has written songs that deliver the narrative and pierce deeply with feeling as they do so. I enjoy the way in which the two halves of the character battle with each other in the songs. As the plot moves along, the songs shift to unique styles when pivotal points are reached. The end result is a narrative that expands with heft and expressive power.

The way in which the different instrumental choices come together on “Party Fein” also adds depth to the storytelling. All of the synths create atmosphere with their varied textures and tones, the guitar adds another layer of powerful feeling and Hugo Lee’s saxophone brings a fresh power and passion to the music. As a whole, each musical element forms a part of the larger picture, sketching different moods and states of mind as they combine.

Another reason why I enjoy “Party Fein” is the rawness and hard-hitting expression that fills it. Manic At Midnight pulls no punches when they decide to expand the story. The way in which they delve into the harsh reality that the two halves of the character are facing is believable and full of relatability, even if it is a reality with which I’ve got little experience. After listening to this music, I felt a deeper appreciation for the struggles faced by the main character on the album.

My Favourite Tracks Analyzed

“Manic At Midnight” begins with subterranean bass moving beneath a mournfully shifting melody that steadily grows in volume. Hector Klaras’s voice breaks, trembling and wounded, as he seeks absolution. The melody is pained, exposing the destructive cycles within his life.

Popping underpinnings drive the music forward while the chorus drifts through self-examination and heartbroken sensation. A driving beat pulls me in, as I focus on the emotional dissection within the lyrics. A synth line floats with silken elegance while the heavy underlayers rebound beneath it. The chorus is drenched in aching emotion as gliding synth textures blend with distorted vocals.

Hugo Lee’s saxophone suddenly leaps upward with fiercely emotive expression, crying out with undeniable weight before the pounding drumbeat and prodigious bass carry the song to its conclusion.

The storyteller swears he is going to leave his old life behind, saying, “My prototype needs a redesign before it flatlines.” He is unable to tell the difference between love and hatred, lamenting that he treats women like trophies while remaining desperately lonely, chasing dangerous highs and wondering why it never satisfies him.

While he admits to “running away from the pain that I cause,” he realizes his heart can't survive another loss. “I’m not manic, I swear to God, I’m about to panic at midnight ’cause I’m not with you,” he confesses, revealing how disconnected he feels and how deeply he misses her touch. He adds, “I have fallen so far from grace, no, I can’t stand to look at your face,” unable to meet her piercing gaze.

As the song closes, the storyteller declares, “Put my foot on the pedal, I’m driving away,” ashamed of being manic at midnight. He leaves us with the stark admission that he is not okay.

Through a cacophony of voices, brilliant notes glimmer to open “Christmas In July.” Trembling tones carry tension as the vocals fade away and the drums burst forward while Hector Klaras’s unique voice is joined by a strumming guitar, adding pulsating dynamism. Hector Klaras’s delivery is hazy yet fractured, as rebounding underpinnings give the track its shape.

The chorus rises with mingled resignation and desire, vividly capturing the emotional weight of the lyrics. Steadily chanted vocals create a hypnotic pull while monstrous percussion bounces beneath them. The way the music cradles the words breathes added life into the song. The chorus gleams, balancing competing hurt and longing.

A saxophone echoes and descends hauntingly, lending earnest expression before the drums rebound once more. I savour the jazz influence in the intricate solo as it weaves above the steady beat. The chorus tumbles through the track again, expressing burning emotion before the song closes on the cry of the saxophone.

All the storyteller can think about are his addictions, crowding his mind with “sweet white lies,” even as he acknowledges what they take from him. He claims he was only searching for empathy, pleading, “Crush me up so fine, make me wanna cross that line.”

“One more time, maybe two times,” our narrator says, craving another hit because he can't fake the feeling. As he passes the substance around, it is “so divine, making me cry,” yet with every line his heart “just can’t keep time.” He knows he can't trade the sensations this habit gives him. Though he says he can't feel his face, he will still take “snowflakes and summer nights, Christmas is in July.”

The storyteller speaks of being “stuck under your mistletoe,” unable to resist the gifts of his addiction and the way it calls to him. “Guess your gifts weren’t free, my boundaries atrophy,” he admits, but he still wants more because “I won’t lie, you bump me to the sky.”

After the first time, perhaps the second as well, he wants to “press rewind,” though he knows he can't reverse it. “Let’s pretend we will do all of this again,” he says. Though it is a life, he realizes it is not truly living. He concludes with a hollow toast: “Cheers this time to all the memories. Stay for now, let’s party through the night.”

“Dance With Me” starts with shimmying drums, enormous bass and a melody that zigzags through the music with uplifting energy. A digitally echoing synth carries hyperactive melody as it skips above the continually shaping underlayer. As the tones freewheel and soar, Hector Klaras’s airy voice glides through a melody rich in undeniable hunger.

I find the dark desire in the vocal performance compelling as it flows through the song. Karissa Upham and Michael B McIyntyre’s voices intertwine with the melody, spilling vibrantly over punchy percussion. As the music unfolds, unalloyed need saturates the vocals, suffusing them with affection. When the chorus carries the track to its conclusion, every musical element blends into a lingering sense of yearning and desire.

“You are the song on my mind that I dance around, baby,” the narrator confesses, admitting his heart is “not in tune with the way you play with it lately.” When their eyes meet, it feels like fireworks. He pleads, “Come move to the groove, oh be mine, please maybe.” Life has not been the same since his alter ego left; “now you’re in my brain, I’m obsessed, I confess.”

For our storyteller, the other personality is his ecstasy, his chosen intoxication. He feels diminished without it, recalling, “You were my everything, your voice was like music to my ears.” He still hears that other half and begs for one more night to dance together. “I’m consumed by the sound of your heartbeat, baby,” he admits, enslaved by the mood the other character stirs within him each day.

Now alone together in the dark, he sees the “curve of your silhouette” and asks his alter ego to dance, to take a chance, urging softly, “Let’s harmonize, you and me.”

A bass wall rumbles beneath haunting, levitating notes that shine into the void to commence “Can’t Take Me Higher.” A guitar cries out and drifts before the tearing edges of the bass move with jagged strength, while a hugely turning arpeggio flashes with brilliance. Notes begin to ripple before the rebounding drumbeat arrives, joined by Hector Klaras’s voice as it clutches at discomfort. A shadowy threat lingers in the background while he captures his internal struggle.

The drums drop away and hollow sounds drift outward, then the beat returns with a titanic throb. The chorus feels warmer but still conveys strain as it floats above stomping underpinnings. The message resonates deeply within me as the track unfolds. A thudding low end pulses while drifting tones hover and Hector Klaras chants with hypnotic repetition, driving the lyrics home. His vocals echo as a descending synth glows with radiance, entangling with the swirling backdrop.

Vivid tones gleam as he confronts self-betrayal. Elevated sounds recede into the distance while the underlayer rebounds. An interweaving synth glistens before Hugo Lee’s saxophone rises, supported by monumental bass. Dark-shaded notes pour through the track while the singer carries the song forward above continual throbbing and the sob of the saxophone.

“You can’t take me higher, this is stranger than before,” he confesses, always climbing until he finds himself sinking below. His alter ego knocked at midnight and “the reflection in the mirror is telling me you need to go.” Though regrets echo in his head, he will sacrifice “one more night before I’ll put us to bed.” He feels his heartbeat and knows “this isn’t a game of chess, if I play, I’ll end up dead.”

He admits his other personality cannot lift him higher because it feeds him lies. “I see so many faces, but I can’t recognize myself,” he says, wondering why this shadow brought him back. Is it a cry for help? He does not know where he belongs, only that “the fun died long ago.” His other half insists he is wrong, yet he answers, “I know that I’m not,” even as regret pounds inside him.

“Run, Run Away” starts with guitar strums steeped in heartbreak, reverberating as dense bass rises. Hector Klaras’s voice cracks with sorrow while the drums tumble steadily and the guitar tangles around them. The beat accelerates and the track erupts with pop-punk energy as a snarling guitar trembles and the vocalist releases aching melancholy.

The drums continue to shove forward while he rips through the song with raw, screaming force and the hammering low end jams relentlessly. Guitar and drums interlock into a driving surge as the chorus explodes, capturing both hope and hurt. Trembling notes descend with spectral sensation as the tempo pushes faster, muffled vocals swelling to full intensity. The brutal momentum carries the song to its crashing end.

Alone on his bed, the narrator realizes he should have listened to his friends, this is “just another heartbreak soundtrack, one more year I’ll never get back.” He thought his other personality was the one, but now he runs from it and “everything I knew.” He asks if its heart is bleeding, because “mine bleeds for you.”

“Run, run away, just pray for better days,” he urges himself, seeing his alter ego’s face everywhere. He longs for escape, unable to endure its “reckless ways.” He wonders if it remembers the sleepless nights “we’d stay up and fight until the sunlight came out.” He wishes he had been wiser. “You won’t forget the screams.” Even when that other side raged, “I’d flick you like a cigarette and I’d melt in your mouth like a Percocet.” Finally, he declares, “I’m fucking done, now I’m on the run and I’ll never miss your stupid face.”

A slightly out-of-tune piano plays a longing melody slowly to commence “A Life Severed.” Drums provide a whispering counterpoint to the twirling melody, which floats out into open space. Hector Klaras’s spoken-word vocals trip and stutter with emotional depth as the piano continues to swirl in the distance and the drums tap.

The way in which raw emotion swells up and spills over me is compelling in this track. The rhythm continues to tap as the chorus is performed with depth and conviction, sliding over the piano notes. As the piano wanders mournfully, the track bleeds with feeling. As it evolves, I cannot help but feel my heart ache for the main character.

Our narrator invites the listener to come and sit in the dark with him and “try to survive on tomorrows.” He says that he’s “just a goddamn afterthought, scared little kid with ADD, BPD,” whose parents passed away back to back. He adds, “No family help, yeah kid, just go to hell.”

“Just a black sheep, an adopted freak,” he asks what the hell anyone is trying to talk about. He says, “I know that you’ll never care, so God, if you’re out there maybe you’ll hear this sinner’s prayer.” He explains that he’s “just another song they always press skip on,” and when he said he was fine “it was just a code word for suicide.”

“Before you go try and just write off my life,” our storyteller wants to unpack “the things that were burning me deep down inside.” He says that since 1994 his brain has been a mess, telling him to die, combined with “a body that was trying to just fucking eat me alive.” When he’s all alone and wants to return home, “I’m sitting here talking to people who are both fucking under a tombstone.”

To conclude the song, the narrator says, “This heart, it won’t mend, I’m trying my best. I know it only matters when they put me to rest.”

Towering bass moves beneath radiant tones that skip through the music in smooth flow to commence “Party Fein.” The vocals drift in, capturing the uncertainty and shadow within the track, while a heavily punching beat drives forward and the guitar slices with harsh intensity. Lost, aching desire fills Hector Klaras’s voice.

Chiming notes flicker as the underlayer moves with ghostly traces, full of shattered emotion. A sense of brokenness permeates the music, touching me with the weight of feeling dripping from the words. The guitar saws through the track while the vocals continue to float with disconnection and hurt, as high notes shiver with blinding light and the crushing foundation drags the music downward.

Hector Klaras chants again as the seismic background sound intertwines and cries out with emptiness and agony before the song ends.

The storyteller is out of control as he parties with “lies and lines,” swearing that no one can keep up with him. He wants to “play ’em like dominos, knock ’em down,” trying to shut off the pain he feels by drowning it in drugs. “Tonight it’ll be the end of me, my fantasy,” he admits.

He boasts about partying and dancing with girls, yet confesses, “I know inside I’m not all right.” Looking at the reflection staring back at him, he realizes it is “the man I swore I’d never be.” He admits that “these choices got a fucking hold on me,” asking, “Does the devil whisper in your ears like he does to me? Do you feel the weight of your actions pull you down to hell?” 

“Strangers Again” begins with crushing bass and an echoing, chopped-up voice that rings almost like bells. The vocals are caressing as quickly glittering notes sweep. The bass is threatening while Paytra’s warm, breathy vocals capture broken emotion, conveying the sense of loss within the lyrics.

The bass rumbles fiercely and Paytra takes hold of the vocals with her broad-ranging voice, imbuing them with intense feeling. The background rages while both members of Manic At Midnight add their vocals. The immense low end moves with the hurt-filled lyrics and the impassioned, hungry performance surges with darkness as a massive sonic tide ripples and the whole track cries with feeling.

As the track settles slowly, a guitar storm rages and howls with palpable anguish while the music throbs and attacks before silence falls.

In these lyrics, our storyteller’s alter ego has taken advantage of a woman whom the main personality was in love with. She says, “I’m just another face inside your cage, you tell me I’m the one to blame.” The main character’s heart yearns for her to stay when she walks away, but thanks to the alter ego, they “mixed up our love with fucking pain, but in the morning we’re strangers again.”

During the day she and the other personality fight, while at night they share passion and she admits that “you brought the drugs, I brought my pain.” The cruel secondary personality turns on her and says, “You know I told you this would hurt, the love I sold you, just pretend,” adding that he slept with her friends. The alter ego boasts about giving her pleasure and making her “an easy sacrifice.”

She concludes, “Let me tell you how I feel, you drag me through your fucking hell. It’s like I’m caught under your spell. Tonight’s the night, don’t wish you well.”

A bass pulse moves beneath tangled, radiant tones to start off “Alone at Midnight.” Giant rebounding sounds move as the lead singer’s trembling voice captures every ounce of hardship and hope for change within the lyrics. The rhythm is heavily throbbing while Hector Klaras reaches out with affection and a sense of need, carrying me along with his earnestly felt performance.

The underpinnings continue to throb as the gentle vocals move through the background and reverent sounds rise. Finger snaps echo as the hushed vocals float and then the vocals are full of loss and fear of the future. The chorus contrasts as it rises above the strongly surging low end, ardent care permeating the words while the background has a crystalline gleam to it.

Chimes flicker while Hector Klaras punches home the message with tenderness.  Cascading vocals trip through the music as the synth has a metallic shine that pierces the darkness in the low end. Hugo Lee’s saxophone solo is full of evocative feeling, crying out with a reedy passion that is undeniably compelling. His saxophone performance is full of touching feeling and complexity while the low end continues to batter. Gentle notes swell before the track slowly breathes to a conclusion.

“We’re living in nostalgic times,” and our storyteller says that we just want to feel alive since we feel dead inside. We all want “just a little spark of joy to light up our minds,” as he tells the song’s subject that if she waits and sees, “we can change our destiny.” He asks her to take his hand and “we will wander where the city lights shine, love echoes in our hearts in the beating of the night.”

“Together we’ll be chasing every dream we’ve ever known,” and in tomorrow’s memories “we’ll never be alone, we’re the generation of forever.” The narrator continues, “we are the generation of forget her, caught up in what we used to be while I lose what’s left of me.” He goes on to say that he’s not lonely or alone.

Now our storyteller is thinking about the days when she rested her head on his chest. Everything is cold and bereft. He points out, “now it’s just a memory, it’s just a little scary ’cause I know I’ll die all alone.”

“Death Of A Party Fein” opens with menacing bass growling as a broken vocal moves and snarling depth fills a spoken word part. The track explodes with a snarling, raging sensation while the drums batter and ragged vocals move with horrifying emotion, the voices churning with evil import. The screaming lyrics rip with unrelenting terror while the spoken word part, chanted rapidly in the background, moves with urgent ferocity.

The blood-curdling vocal performance is full of darkness while the drums continue to pound. I find myself swept up in the storm, shredded by the unrelenting anger and savage emotion. The guitar chugs and Hector Klaras chants with all of the sinister emotion contained in the lyrics.

As the song lashes with terrible weight, it moves into a segment in which a tornado of sound spills through the music. The rough, violently growled vocals create a feeling of unbelievable evil before the sound of a heart monitor flatlining ends the song.

The dark side of the main character confronts him, saying, “you took too many Percocets, that heartbeat slows but you’re still here yet.” It sneers at him and says, “you spent those nights trying to take your life, what a surprise, you couldn’t get it right.”

The alter ego goes on to say that the narrator’s “brain is dead, your nerves are shot,” as it mocks him about the woman to whom he was drawn. It says, “you really thought that she would want to stay? I smell the desperation from miles away.”

Now the alter ego says, “drugs feeling like caffeine, no chill in this bloodstream,” as his chest pounds. He talks about taking advantage of a woman and says that he won’t stop until “I’m motherfucking six feet deep, son.”

The light side of his personality confronts the darker side and says, “I don’t understand how you got through this. You lived this long, but I think it’s time that you stayed gone.” He adds, “you’re just a party fein.”

The main character’s anger continues as he faces his shadowy side. He says, “you don’t have enough drugs to take to make your nightmare’s faces go away. Your heart’s necrotic and your mind’s neurotic, a midnight manic going full psychotic.”

The dark side retorts, saying, “called out to God but he ain’t picking up and all your friends just don’t give a fuck.” He says the main character’s life is a prison, but he calls it home and its foundation is “this heart of stone.”

Now the lighter side of the personality says, “I’m begging God just to make it stop. Do I really have to go through another loss?” He’s heartbroken and he can’t breathe. “My hands are shaking on my knees. I’m not ready.”

He concludes by saying, “I’m a party fein.”

Conclusion

“Party Fein” is a gut-wrenching emotional journey and an examination of the havoc that trauma can wreak on a life. I’m moved and filled with complex feelings as the songs reveal more facets of the story. I am pleased to have gone on this journey with Manic At Midnight.