For a debut album, Time Heals Unlike Us hits hard. From start to finish, the album is a journey. Each piece is unique, definitely its own, but builds toward the central idea of the album—which is, to my understanding, a full human life. It’s important to note that, while I really like my interpretation of the album, it’s my interpretation. One of the beauties of art is that billions of people can experience it and walk away with different impressions. I'm going to go through each track individually, but I suggest you listen to the album before reading my review so you can experience it to its fullest. You can find it on whatever streaming service you use.
The album starts with Awake. The piece is optimistic and lighter than many of the others. It’s exploratory as well, and feels like a new experience. I couldn’t help but imagine the smiling faces of two parents as their newly-born child gazes up at them. There’s newness from each perspective.
Following is Youth, which is softer and slower than the previous track but continues its theme. It has a touch of melancholy, almost reminiscence, as if someone is remembering summer days and simple times of childhood.
Innocence and Holding Hands go well together, I think. There’s a similar carefree nature about them, despite touches of maturity. When paired, I can’t help but think of young love, its simplicity yet the immense effect it has. On its own, Innocence has an expectant feel to it, as if the child born in Awake is making plans for the future, unaware of what life will throw at them down the road. Holding Hands has a sense of maturity here that Youth and Innocence lack. It’s gentle, it’s slow to start, and it’s deep. By the time it’s halfway through, Holding Hands feels like a coming-of-age story in itself: the child has grown up and found someone to love—someone to share life with. They’re experiencing something that leaves them at a loss for words. There’s also a sort of bliss in this track, particularly around the last quarter of the second-minute mark.
Contemplations and Interviews are fascinating pieces. With Contemplations, it slips back and forth between conclusions—contemplating. It has the unique trait of being optimistic yet uncertain. Interviews has an almost anxious theme, which is precisely how I remember feeling before an interview. The track remains loosely optimistic, however. If we return to the thematic character of this album, I imagine these two tracks detail his/her life after high school and college. I imagine someone—accompanied by the someone introduced in Holding Hands—beginning on the more realistic steps of life. There’s been a detachment from Innocence, yet there’s no cynicism.
Spires is the longest track, at a little over eleven minutes. It’s also one of the most somber, marking a definite shift in the album. It starts slowly with gentle repetitions, then builds on those repetitions and forms a passionate crescendo. The title is less straightforward than the other tracks, which makes it a little more difficult to place regarding the musical narrative. It feels very much like a point of realization, however.
With Generation, I see the central character—now married and with children of his/her own—watching their parents become grandparents, and then becoming a grandparent themself. It’s a little melancholy, but often enforces the listener with a sense of purpose. The last three minutes of this track have an especially wonderful touch.
Past is retrospective and starts to shift the album toward somberness. There are touches of regret, an emotion that often follows looking back on our lives. There’s a sense of anxiety toward the end as well, which begins sending the album toward the end of a human life.
Ages smoothes some of the emotions from the previous track. Ages is still melancholic, but is also peaceful. I think it’s best visualized in watching an older person—someone whose body is failing them—interact with someone young and healthy. There’s a huge physical disparity, but so often a sense of eagerness from the older and more experienced person.
Frailty is about physical pain. It’s about being unable to climb the stairs like you used to, about having to take dozens of medications to keep breathing. It’s about being unable to play the piano for longer than fifteen minutes because your fingers stiffen and hurt. It’s about falling down and being unable to lift yourself. Even more, however, it’s about the acceptance that a life is coming to an end. It’s one of the most gripping and emotional pieces on the album.
The Pain of the Elderly is interesting. With just the title to look at, it might not seem all that different than Frailty. But the song seems more somber to me, less sharp but more sorrowful. I picture a different kind of pain here than touched on in Frailty. I see an old man or woman watching their friends die to old age. I see them being unable to retain their memory, becoming less and less. Eventually, I wonder if the pain is connected more with still being alive rather than the effects of growing old.
Eternal is the end of the central character as I see it. I picture a family around a hospital bed as their parent/grandparent draws their last breath. The title suggests that there’s more to the central character’s existence, however. I see Eternal as being one of two things. My first assumption was that this is the hope after the pain, the forever beyond death. The child has lived a lifetime and died, now stepping into eternity. The other possibility is the memory the central character has impressed on those around them. Their effect on their loved ones is eternal—it feels particularly so recently after losing them. Either way, the track is optimistic and peaceful.
The final track, Delicate Dimension, is to me an overview of the billions of times this album has been played over—the billions of lives that have lived it and will continue to. Life is delicate. It comes and goes. Each stage of life has its joys and anxieties, and we’re almost never certain of anything. We’re always learning and changing. Then, after we’ve lived a full life, we die. Thankfully there is a definite dimension, one where there will be no anxieties or uncertainties—that’s the dimension I picture when I listen to Eternal.
Looking over the full album with its title in mind, I can't help but wonder if the overarching message is that we don't heal. We're born, we grow, and gradually decay. But there's wonder and joy between birth and death. Life is difficult and confusing, and so often I find myself reflecting and wondering when it will get better. Maybe the album is about appreciating the moment. Maybe it's not about waiting for things to get better but living through young love and arthritis. When our time is up, then it's time to experience a new life—one that won't decay.
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