Loss hollows you out, leaves jagged edges where comfort once sat. For Never Any Ordinary, a Charleston outfit born from the ashes of personal wreckage, their new album Life Everlasting is a jagged map through grief’s labyrinth. Out now via We’re Trying Records, this record wrestles with the gut-punch of losing a cat to a house fire and a friend to suicide, twin blows landing six months apart.
What began as a modest EP when the band was a duo metastasized into a full-length beast after new members stoked the creative furnace. The result is a sonic pendulum swinging from tender acoustic laments to melodic post hardcore and screamo’s feral howl, all tethered to a singular thread: mourning’s long shadow and the faint glow of moving forward.
The story starts in cinders and silence. A band member—Sarah, the voice behind the mic—channeled her cat’s death and her friend’s self-inflicted exit into these tracks. Six months between tragedies stretched into an endless fog, where losing trinkets stings but losing souls cuts deeper. “Music helped them get through these times,” the band shares, and Life Everlasting doubles as a lifeline—they hope it hauls someone else from the brink or at least softens the fall.
The range here is a tightrope walk: one minute, you’re cradled by a lone guitar and Sarah’s cracking whisper, the next, you’re slammed by post-hardcore’s full-throttle snarl. It’s deliberate chaos, mirroring grief’s whiplash—quiet despair one day, rage the next.
The album’s heart beats loudest in its track-by-track dissection (dive into the full commentary below for the blow-by-blow), but at its core, it’s about clawing through loss, guilt, and the slow crawl to something better. Sarah sums it up: “pretty much every song on this record taps into at least one of those themes.”
Charleston’s DIY underbelly birthed this thing, and the band doesn’t shy from crediting it. “We couldn’t have made this record without the gracious support of our local scene,” they say. Once a sleepy dot overshadowed by hardcore and metal, Charleston’s soundscape got kneecapped by Covid—venues like cory’s grilled cheese shuttered, bands splintered.
But lately, it’s clawing back. New joints like stu’s house, tin roof, and cos & effect pack their calendars, while acts like hound, newgrounds death rugby, haunters, anergy, gow, and abrevity churn out grit worth hearing.
“We are blessed to be part of an up-and-coming scene that is (in my opinion) better than ever and only keeps growing,” they add, tossing a nod to every sweaty kid who’s snagged a shirt or screamed along.
For Sarah, it’s personal as hell. “It largely deals with my personal life and experiences over the span of the past four-ish years,” she admits. Music’s been her buoy—listening, writing, bleeding through strings and shrieks. “I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that both listening to and creating music has saved my life on more than one occasion.” The album’s not a sermon; it’s a hand extended—take it or don’t.
The opener is a throat-shredding beast, heavy with guilt and fury over her friend’s death. “It’s a lot of screaming,” she notes, penned when the wound was still wet. Then Life Everlasting, the title track, dials it down—solo guitar, fragile vocals, a flicker of hope in lines like “each small step brings me closer to you.”
Smile Like You Do flips the script, Sarah imagining her friend’s venom—“you’re just one more year that I wasted”—before pleading for one last good moment. New Skin dances despite its sting, a bassline-driven oath to shed betrayal’s weight, while Someday, At The Bottom of a River plunges into depression’s murk, whispering hope through clenched teeth.
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Things Have Gotten Worse… strips it bare—acoustic, with banjo and piano weaving through fears of isolation. “I am truly something awful when I cannot see the worst in me,” Sarah sings, landing hard. Its partner, …Since We Last Spoke, slows the pulse, pondering if “my troubles are unfounded” will ever ring true. The closer, The Best Of You, erupts with trumpet and rhythm, a raw-throated “I really miss you” tying the knot on this messy, vital journey.
Two and a half years in the making, polished by producer Matt Tuton and mastering Whiz Bill Henderson, Life Everlasting dropped February 21st. The release party’s set for March 8th at Tin Roof, with newgrounds Death Rugby and Sawyer Norman splitting the bill.
Track by track rundown:
1. I Am Never Getting Closure:
As all openers should, I Am Never Getting Closure is the track that best encapsulates the theme of the entire album: my struggles with losing a friend, feeling guilty for their passing, and hating the version of myself I was when it happened.
It’s definitely our heaviest song so far, at least in terms of musicality. It’s a lot of screaming, largely becuase it was one of the first tracks written for this record and the emotions were still very fresh. We don’t play it as often as we should, because it’s physically hard on all of us, but it’s never not fun to experience this track.
2. Life Everlasting
The title track of this record is a dramatic tone shift, and the first of many. Gone is the screaming and heavy guitars, replaced with one solitary guitar riff and my cracking voice. I Am Never Getting Closure is unabashedly loud and angry, while Life Everlasting is calm and contemplative.
In this track, I reflect on life and what this loss will mean for me going forward. It’s hopeful in a way, with lines like “each small step brings me closer to you”, the thought that my loved ones long passed are always with me and that I shouldn’t dwell on their absence.
3. Smile Like You Do
This was the very first track written for the record. At the time, we didn’t know it would be the start of an album, just a new direction for us. I’ve been contemplative about my situation, now it’s time to be angry again. I wrote about myself from my dead friend’s perspective, with lines like “you’re just one more year that I wasted” and “are you proud of yourself for being able to disconnect so easily?”.
I thought about the worst possible things I could say to myself, and turned it into something that would live beyond me. It’s not all bad, though. I switch perspectives here and there, begging for just one more moment to do something good with them again, even if I never will.
4. New Skin
This is one of our favorite songs to play live. The previous three tracks were all written by myself and our former drummer (now guitarist) Shawn. This one was the first written as a five-piece, and it’s definitely another tone shift.
This song is very dancy, and it all started with Brendo’s bassline. It starkly contrasts with the lyrics, which were written after a close friend betrayed my trust. I used this experience to take a look at myself and swore never to make the same mistakes.
New Skin has some of my favorite lyrics, with “you can’t say what you want to me, and I don’t blame you” particularly cutting into me deep, but the constant reiteration of “I’ll be fine” reminding me that I can always get better.
5. Someday, At The Bottom of A River
This song gets a bit dark, honestly. If each song fits somewhere in the lines of the 5 Stages of Grief, this one is depression for sure. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for a long time which greatly affects my writing, and this song is the culmination of those struggles.
I make not so vague illusions to ending my life, but the final line confesses that I’m too scared to ever let that happen. Things will always get better, it just takes time, and ending your life is never the answer. I hope this song comes across as a message of hope more than anything, even if the lyrics don’t show that whatsoever.
6. Things Have Gotten Worse…
This is the only acoustic track on the record, but it still has plenty of fun embellishments from our guitarist Naomi on piano. This was also the first time I’ve gotten to play the banjo, which was very difficult to keep in tune.
Keeping with the running theme of introspection, this song takes a look at my fear of losing those around me and being alone again. I try my best to deal with my fears, but death and loss are two that always haunt me, and even greater is my fear of never becoming my best self before I die.
Lines like “I am truly something awful when I cannot see the worst in me” stick out as favorites from the whole record. Finally, the song ends with “though things have gotten worse, I am calm” which reflects the mindset I try to have through the worst of times.
7. …Since We Last Spoke
This song basically continues the message of Things Have Gotten Worse…, namely my fear of loss and not being enough to help those around me. I don’t really have much to say about this track, but it’s a welcome slow song at shows where most of our set is heavy and fast. Slow songs like this also give me time to process what I’m saying and why I’m saying it.
One of the final lines I think embodies this record is on this track “will I ever see the day where my troubles are unfounded?”, to which the obvious answer is no. I will carry the loss of friends and loved ones my whole life. I will never be free of it. These people will never come back, but that means it’s my job to keep their memory alive and make them proud of the person I’ve become. I don’t think I’m quite there yet, but I’m also my own biggest critic.
8. The Best of You
This was the last song written for the record, but it is by far our favorite to play. This song is everything I love in closers on albums. I have to admit I’m biased, but I think it’s catchy, it’s raw, and Jesse’s drums mixed with Brendo’s bassline really carry it all the way. I also got to pick up the trumpet for the first time since high school, which I was very happy about.
Another thing that makes a good closer is tying everything together into one final effort, to really make a statement on the journey we’ve gone through together. “I really miss you”, while incredibly simple, is really the entire sentiment behind this record. There’s really no other way to describe grief and loss better than that.
