Tulip – The Perpetual Dream
Release Date: 5th May 2022
Label: Independent
Spotify / Apple / Bandcamp
Genre: Symphonic Metal, Djent, Progressive Metal, Metalcore, Groove Metal.
FFO: Periphery, Born of Osiris, late-era Within Temptation.
Review By: Kira L. Schlechter
Art is often a vehicle for coming to grips with a traumatic past. It’s also a vehicle for celebrating recovery and healing from that past. The best art shows you that process – that’s what “The Perpetual Dream,” the latest album by the Texas-by-way-of-Toronto band TULIP does, and does exceedingly well.
The band is classically-trained singer Ashleigh Semkiw, guitarist Colin Parrish, bassist Cody Casillas, and drummer Ryan Claxton.
They released six videos from the album before its surprise release, each distinct, each more fascinating than the last – from the anime of “Gemini” to the lyric video for “Starseed,” to the dramatic elegance of “Near Death” to what looks like the metal version of “Thriller” of “Assassin.”
As those tracks – and videos – evidenced, this is a band of immense range and striking musicianship. An overarching symphonic metal style is their base, but they dabble most competently in prog, electronica, djent, and hip-hop. The songs of “The Perpetual Dream” are more immediate, catchier, if that’s not a bad word – more accessible, easier to latch on to. And that’s only to their benefit.
The brief instrumental intro “DR34MF4RM3R” is the perfect sonic precursor to “Ghost of Kviv,” which, despite its name, has nothing to do with Ukraine, but everything to do with war – the one between Ashleigh and Colin and their past. The life partners met while they were members of a strict Calvinist Baptist church in their native Toronto – and while they were married to other people. Their divorces from their previous spouses, and from the church, estranged them from Ashleigh’s parents and from most of their friends. So the verses are a bit of scene-setting foreshadowing and the driving chorus, with its erratic tempo, hints at their escape – “Turn around my ghost/Haunt them til they know/They will never take our souls.” The bridge is an even more direct reference to it: “This face tells a story covered in scars/But I know what my chances are/Steal your life back, the light has come,” Ashleigh sings in righteous fury. Colin has his say next, whispering and then roaring, “Did you really think that you could start a war/Did you really think I wouldn’t settle the score” and ultimately vowing, “One day I will be your deliverance/One day I will come for you … One day I will be your ghost.”
(As an aside, the band’s name is an acronym for the five principles of Calvinism; they were taught as children to remember them by using it. The principles are: T–Total Depravity; U–Unconditional Election; L–Limited Atonement; I–Irresistible Grace; P–Perseverance of the Saints.)
Brilliant, bright, and driving, “Gemini” is massively dense sonically, laden with bits of orchestration and undercut by Colin’s slashing guitar and Ryan’s hectic blast beats. It seems to be saying that the two of them are the gemini, if you will; they are the two parts of each other. Ashleigh sings in the first verse, “I can’t take control/On my own,” then notes, “Some peace of mind opens up/Putting me back into your arms.” The progress they’ve made in their lives is reflected in the chorus: “I can’t use more than I can handle/I can’t use more than I can take/Turning my gaze to see the future/I am finally unafraid” and “What if I was someone else?/What if I could break the spell?” The idea of the “gemini” gels further in the bridge, when the two of them alternately sing and growl the lines, “The gravity of all my perfect choices/Breaking me/And I can’t seem to take control,” urging each other, “Now take control!” The verse and bridge lyrics then repeat, to drive home the harrowing but necessary choice they made.
The haunting “The Hanged Man” is hypnotic in its repetition, its fury both quiet and unfettered. Ashleigh begins with the whispered lines, “Water, soil, water, blood, the fool, the hanged man/Now time to go, to put you back, to where it all began” and she returns to the couplet frequently as a mantra, to further emphasize that the past has no hold on her any more (and it’s safe to assume that the title is a Christ reference). The chorus begins with that old kids’ finger play, “Here is the church and here is the steeple/Open the door and see all your people,” but the remainder of it is pure sharp commentary on how that church is impotent, indolent in its wealth – “The rot, the teeth that can’t draw blood/All swinging limp, with two bags of gold,” Ashleigh mocks, her voice in full-throttled scorn. The second verse continues that idea, that those who persist in following the dogma will be disappointed, “free from all relief … crippled in the grief.” And in the bridge, ground out to a potent chug, Ashleigh cries, “It’s too late now to kneel” before returning to those opening lines. It’s cathartic and powerful.
“MU53” is another brief instrumental interlude, a techno/hip-hop groove mixed with metallic guitars and Colin’s harsh vocals, some of which include the sampled chorus from “The Hanged Man.”
With a pounding, thudding groove that touches a bit on the hip-hop feel of “MU53,” “Assassins” is given further edge by classically-inspired orchestration and Ashleigh’s sing-song indictment, “One two, who are you/Three four, speak no more/Five six, venom lips.” This is clearly addressing the community they left and the character assassination with which they dealt. Her tone is wonderfully taunting throughout as she asks in the first verse, “Oh do you know what … they say about me?” The second is even more pointed – now she asks, “Do you know how .. they’re hiding from me?” noting how they’ve lost their influence over her (“Deadly sins pride leads the way/Hollow fangs on full display”). The chorus seems to reference their escape from the community yet again, as does the musing bridge with its references to freedom (“the new day is so warm”) and at last having the last laugh (“Overlooked, disregarded/When we said goodbye”).
“Third Eye,” though, reads more reflective and less defiant, despite powerful layers of orchestration and Colin’s biting guitar work. The chorus, undermixed, starts the song and becomes another touchstone, repeated throughout and beautifully overdubbed in the actual chorus: “I’m glad I don’t know/Until the deal is really done/I’m glad I won’t know/How it’s going to end … As I watch with my third eye” – as if to say I’m not sure how this healing process is going to turn out, but I’m watching its progress. “I don’t want to live with regrets/I keep my secrets,” she notes, “Memories of the past/More than enough to make it last,” like I’ve got plenty of those to mull over for a while. Later she remembers the “letters in the books beside my bed/Pictures circled up in red” and knows it’s “time to let it wash away,” but a Greek chorus of choir vocals reminds her that she “…might look more/Recall what I am fighting for.” Ultimately, she knows she did the right thing: “I wake up in the dead of night/Spirit telling me that it’s alright/My bursting heart all it can hold/I ride away wrapped in gold.” Colin, too, is secure in his choice: “Holding you close,” he roars, and echoes, “Ride away wrapped in gold.”
I spoke with Ashleigh when TULIP released their EP “The Witch” back in 2021, and she spoke about leaving the religious community – and her mother – and how they all predicted her imminent downfall if she did so. “Black Rainbow” here could very well be about that same thing. Beginning on a light, airy melody and crushing into skittering orchestration, bludgeoning riffs, and a head-swinging groove, the first verse could be a conversation: her asserting her independence, saying, “You’re invisible/Can’t go back again,” and them countering, “So go on speak against/The truth is our defense,” and her claiming, “That’s not who I am/Everyone has failed you/It was just my turn.” The chorus is her looking back and acknowledging the power they no longer have over her: “You got what you wanted … Cold and hard and guiltless … Extinguishing yourself.” The bridge, too, is literally a line-by-line argument: “I know I have earned it,” she says, “Wasted life,” they answer; “I know I have earned it,” she repeats, “Careless lover,” they accuse. It’s nicely ambiguous later in the bridge – who’s talking when she sings, “This is not the end/I will come back harder”? – it’s rather sinister.
Another instrumental segue is the piano- and strings-based “HOM3,” again serving as an ideal lead-in into the stunning gloriousness of “Near Death.” Here is where the two begin to find their joy.
Taking flight on orchestration, pummelling guitars, and blast beats before Ashleigh’s piano and delicate croon bring it down to earth, this might just be the story of their relationship. Her repetition of the phrase “through it all” is so poignant – through the crazy mess of how they came together, through the disapproval of the community, through fleeing their families, “I can feel you … I can hear you … You are mine,” she says. In the second verse, she recalls perhaps the first inklings of their love, “I’m praying to the ones who’ve gone before (like for spiritual guidance)/But I know the seeds we’ve sown/And I will not let you go.” A pre-chorus is added, her pleading, “I won’t give up on you … Please don’t give up on me/I’ll carry this bright torch for you.” The lilting, optimistic bridge is testament to their devotion: “You are my dark battle/Reminding me of all my dreams … I’m still amazed that you came true for me.” Colin joins her in the final chorus, making a last nod to their past: “The enemy thought they had you/But I said, you are mine.”
“Starseed,” with its spacey, futuristic crunch, soaring melody, and alternately stomping, then fast-paced tempos, sees the couple moving into a more perhaps science-based way of thinking, one based more in mystery than in predestination – recognizing evolution, maybe (“It’s about who we are/Made of stars”), governed by something we’ll never know (“Seeded from beyond,” and “Something greater than ourselves”). And they’re fine with doing so – “I am willing to let go of all the things I cling to,” Ashleigh declares, “Never walking in their shadow/Strength and pride – I’m alive!” It’s kind of also about forgiveness as well, as she notes in the bridge, “Every lesson is good in the end/Oh a sweeter flower/And a softer sky.”
The closing title track is most definitely about the two of them, their thankfulness, the peace they’ve ultimately found. It may begin with strings and Ashleigh in full soul/blues mode singing lines like “Who told our joy where to hide til we’re ready?” and “Our fortunes came true when we built this life together” in a section that becomes another repeated refrain. But before you think it’s going to be some Hallmark-card sappy ballad, the tempo kicks up and Ashleigh matter-of-factly tells their story, of the “eagle that flies away from the North” (i.e. Canada) “in search of warmth” (i.e. Texas, but also freedom and acceptance), and how they wound up “together/Not burdened by goodbyes.” The chorus bounces gleefully along to lashes of guitar and orchestration, rejoicing that “Our life is a melody,” but “it’s not what it seems” – there has to be balance, or “The beauty of harmony.” The last section is really moving – not just in Ashleigh’s reminiscences (“So when I think of all the years together … The night we met, it always, always feels the same”) but also for Colin’s roared devotion – “Forever faithful/Keeper of promises,” he calls himself, “Don’t ever leave me/Stay by my side.”
“The Perpetual Dream” is a complete journey through the lives of TULIP’s main creators, from harsh, bitter past to optimistic, bright, empowered future. Each track is a clearly delineated step in that journey. And just because their path goes from darkness to light doesn’t mean the music loses any of its bite. The past will always haunt them, but they have the tools to deal with it now – and they have each other. What a special, special album.
(5 / 5)
