Okay, let me address the fact that the headline you clicked to read this article may have sounded a little harsh. But we also said, “Politely Tell Your Siblings to Stop Having Children,” so don’t be such a thin-skinned whiny crybaby.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about: babies. Or the lack thereof.
You certainly love your brother and/or sister, and the nieces and/or nephews they have given you. But you know you can’t in good consciousness cheer on the fact that they need more. Or maybe they don’t have any at all, and are thinking about bringing a child into this world for the first time? Here are some nice, simple ways to let them know how awful of an idea that is.
Is It Really Feasible to Have More Kids in This Economy?
Listen, you just want what’s best for your potential niece or nephew, and your brother’s salary as manager of the golf department at Dick’s Sporting Goods probably isn’t going to provide the means for a life they truly deserve.
It Sucks, But Having More Kids Means Less Time to Do Stuff You Want to Do.
Remember the next great screenplay you always wanted to write? Well, you can throw that, along with any other creative endeavors you’ve wanted to do, right into the shitter. That is, unless you have some sort of creative spark 18 years down the road, but at that point it’ll just be sad.
Ugh, Can You Imagine Never Being Able to Sleep Soundly Ever Again?
This one’s a no-brainer. Sleep is the best thing ever on this planet, arguably even more so than finger foods and malt liquor. Remember all those horrible sleepless nights you had with your first child? Is having another one worth looking like, and acting like shit towards everyone because you’re sleepy all the time? For the sake of everyone in this family, please say it’s not.
Having Children is Not Good for the Health of Our Planet.
More kids mean more dirty diapers. More dirty diapers means more junk stuffed into some massive garbage mound that sticks out of this island we call Earth like a festering ass boil. It’s really up to parents to help reduce the human race’s carbon footprint, and a few used condoms are much less detrimental to our planet’s health than an entire human carbon footprint.
What If They Grow Up to Be a Serial Murderer? Wouldn’t That Suck?
I don’t know about you, but I’d feel terrible if my son or daughter grew up to be the next Hillside Strangler. Imagine being the parent of the subject of some dork’s true crime podcast 40 years down the road. Is that little bundle of joy truly worth that risk? Something every potential parent with a conscience should ask themselves.
Neckbeard-y hot take incoming: This is the least Cave In sounding Cave In album. How many times have you seen this story? Band known for a certain sound gets signed to major label, releases a too-polished, overly-produced album that does not appeal to wider middle America audience while simultaneously alienating their core fans. “But… but… isn’t this their most popular album?” Yes, and “The Phantom Menace” was the highest-grossing movie of all time until “Avatar” came out and those are both terrible.
This is a mixed bag of unfinished demos that possibly never got to be refined due to the sudden death of bassist Caleb Scofield. There are still great moments here though, some with an understandably somber tone. On “Shake My Blood” the band’s love of Failure is put on full display. Given time this could’ve been one of their best releases.
Ok, let’s start with the good news. Cave In are still active and put out an album in 2022, Nate Newton from Converge, Jesuit, and Doomriders amongst others is now playing bass and doing the screaming vocals, the first two songs are absolute ragers. Things start to get a little hit-or-miss afterward though. It’s tough to put on our finger on it but something just feels off in some of these songs. You know like when the cast of an old TV show does some hamfisted reunion and you can just tell everyone is just tired and maybe a little strung out? It’s kinda like that.
After their brief stint on major label RCA, Cave In spent a year or so licking their wounds from the experience and returned to their home on Hydra Head and to a sound closer to what many fans remembered. They rediscovered the heavier metalcore sound mixed with the spacey operatic elements while dialing up the experimental weirdness a bit. Most bands after their big-time record deal falls apart typically break off to do self-indulgent solo projects or even worse, form a “supergroup.” Luckily they were able to course-correct here though and avoid the cringey burnout phase.
Not included in the ranking since it isn’t a studio album but a collection of their first hardcore-era 7”s and various songs from compilations with a revolving door of vocalists. Most of these songs were written while the band was still in high school which is astonishing when you think about how most high school bands sound like the inside of a Guitar Center on some kind of “play all of our instruments at once” day.
For many die-hard followers of Cave In, this was their least favorite release on first listen. But just like how George Costanza was able to get a woman to be interested in him by repeatedly dropping a little earworm “Cuh-STAN-za,” this started to grow on people also. (Seinfeld references are still relevant, right?) They went to a weirdo realm on this but kept that shit heavy. Stephen Brodsky takes a bit of a backseat on vocals here and lets Scofield’s screams do the heavy (pun intended) lifting.
A year prior to “Jupiter” Cave In released the “Creative Eclipses” EP which teased out a new direction the band was heading in musically. “Jupiter” picks up right where “Eclipses” left off and yes, the mosh parts and the screaming were gone but what was left was something entirely new. And much like its namesake Jupiter, the album feels like a massive presence with weight that draws you into its orbit of celestial violence and beauty. (Dear reader, please submit the last line of this blurb to the fine folks who hand out the Pulitzer Prize, they are going to shit themselves.)
We’re ending this ranking with their first album which probably seems like we’re just being lazy in our writing but (need joke here). After burning through a few frontmen, the group became a four-piece and Brodsky took over vocal duties on both singing and screaming for the first and only time. Not many in the mathy metalcore genre of the time could’ve pulled off an ambitious 8-minute epic space odyssey like “The End of Our Rope is a Noose” without it being a catastro-fucking-phe but Cave In sure did it.
Dokken “Breaking the Chains”
Slayer “Show No Mercy”
Metallica “Kill Em’ All”
Saxon “Power and the Glory”
Dio “Holy Diver”
Accept “Balls to the Wall”
Raven “All for One”
Battleaxe “Burn This Town”
Mercyful Fate “Melissa”
Motörhead “Another Perfect Day”
Iron Maiden “Piece of Mind”
Torch “S/T”
Trance “Power Infusion”
Exciter “Heavy Metal Maniac”
Thin Lizzy “Thunder and Lightning”
Savatage “Sirens”
Satan “Court in the Act”
Grim Reaper “See You in Hell”
Tank “This Means War”
Ashbury “Endless Skies”
Warlord “Deliver Us” EP
This sentiment was undercut when he proceeded to mistake one of the documents for Marla Maples.
It’s hard to blame Trump for keeping such a sentimental document marking the happiest day of his life.
If executed, this will be the first time a former U.S President has declared “Losers weepers” since Warren G. Harding
“I wish dad got indicted every day!”
“If continuing to trust Trump is a telltale sign of my mental sun-downing then pass me the gravy!”
“The parking lot at Jake’s Jack Shack is huge, the best.”
According to the Super-Trump NFT card stats he’s stronger than Thanos and The Hulk combined, and unlike Superman, he is resistant to magic.
“More like ‘Aileen Can-not!’ Is that something?”
The phrase “we’re talking about a real dog here” was used 36 times.
“We need to focus on dismantling the insidious literacy-to-liberalism pipeline!”
“Let’s just say something tells me I’m gonna be tearing it up in the Florida Keys pretty soon.”
“Shamrock, extra whipped cream, shaken not stirred.”
Joe Biden has called the map “the whole reason I became President in the first place,” and considers Trump “a total dick for bogarting it.”
“Yaas Queens, stand down and stand by.”