My Pick Album #1: La Dispute - Wildlife [Post-hardcore, Prog Rock, Spoken Word] 2011

La Dispute is a post hardcore band from Grand Rapids Michigan.  The lyrics are more poetry than lyrics and are sung with so much emotion that you can feel the music throughout your body.  To this day (having heard this album 50+ times) I still get chills and goosebumps several times throughout this album.  According to the band this album is"a collection of unpublished "short stories" from a hypothetical author, complete with the author’s notes and sectioned thematically by the use of four monologues."  The stories in this album are gut wrenching and make you really see people in life altering situations, whether they deal with them positively or negatively, from different points of view.  The best example of this is the song King Park.  In this a drive by shooting takes the life of an innocent bystander, a young child, and looks that the situation from the points of view of the police, neighbors, family members, and the shooter.  It really gives you every side of the story and builds to an insanely powerful ending showing raw human emotion.  This style of music and writing may not be for everyone, but I want you guys to give it a chance.  If you can't listen to the music for one reason or another I think you should at least read through the lyrics of this album.

This is one of the most moving albums I have ever heard.  I would actually love to see a short filmed with this album as the narration/dialog.  A hardcore opera of sorts.  With the right filming it could be one of the most emotion tearing videos ever made.

Give this one a chance, and let me know what you guys think in the comments below.  Is it as moving as I think it is?  Does it not hit the same notes with you?

And if you have heard this album before, try hearing them live and the passion they have while performing these songs:

Favorite track: Safer In The Forest/Love Song For Poor Michigan
Spotify: La Dispute – Wildlife
If you like this, then try these: MeWithoutYou – Catch For Us The Foxes, La Dispute – Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair