When all the “normies” out there think of introverts, what do they imagine? Said people likely label introverts as self-loathing creatures who “just need to be happy”, or worse, “normal”. Little do they know that it’s the introverts who play a strong role in shaping society, new ideas, and the very fabric of the world itself.
Introvert vocalist Connor Welsh knows this all too well, having been through the metaphorical ringer when it comes to relationships, as well as battles with his own personal demons. The recently released album, A Collection Of Failed Attempts To Breathe, chronicles that in harrowing and striking detail – in the form of some chaotic mix between metalcore and downtempo. Below, you can check out a track by track detailing each song on the album, and interested parties can also check out the entire album on our To The Extreme Spotify playlist.
So first, a little bit about me.
Hi, I’m Connor, and I’m half of the metalcore/downtempo/whatever you wanna call it band, Introvert. I write the lyrics, do the vocals and help out with the drumming. I’m currently finishing my second year in medical school and started this project with Eric Fletcher (Prime Meridian, DGNRT) in mid-2014. We’ve put out a handful of releases, but most recently we put out A Collection of Failed Attempts to Breathe, which is what I’m here to detail a bit! This album means a great deal to me, and while some of the lyrics might seem “cliché” or something, they’re all very real things I’ve dealt with in my own past. They’re a lot of the darkest times and thoughts of my life in iambic pentameter (or some variation thereof), and it’s my hope that, through them and the music that serves as their vector, people struggling with the same things won’t feel so alone. Anyways, here’s a track-by-track rundown of A Collection of Failed Attempts to Breathe!
Track One: Desolation’s Plough
So, this is the intro, and really it isn’t a lot more than that. Some of the lyrics I actually intended to use as the outro to our debut full length, Self-Helpless, before Sean’s guest spot was included and he killed the lyrics there. I wanted to give something short and sweet to sort of let the listener know that the “introvert” character—me—was still behind this release. Plus it packs a punch.
Track Two: Gelston After Dark
Originally, I think we were going to release this number as a stand-alone single—which is why it has that funky beat part in it. The track got its name from the dormitory I lived in my sophomore year of undergrad at Alma College—and many of the lyrical themes touch on a lot of the shitty things that took place there, heaps of them at my own doing. I did some things I’m not proud of there and held a lot of good people back with my own selfishness and problems—so this track is sort of a retrospective on that. More importantly, it’s me reflecting on a lot of the things that happened there and how they still linger in my mind, never really fully subsiding.
Track Three: Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy
For those of y’all who haven’t figured it out, some of these track titles come right outta my medical education. If you’ve still avoided googling this, let me fill you in: Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy is an apical dilation of the left and right ventricles of the heart as a result of psychologic or physiologic stress—literally “broken heart disease,” as some people call it. As a result, much of this song lingers on the ever-poignant topic of heartbreak—in this case, especially the inability to move on from it and grow.
Track Four: Wounds That Time Can’t Heal/Track Five: 10.21.13
This track and the next track kind of go together; for a long time following the series of unfortunate events that spurred Introvert’s creation (you’re right, by the way, most of them are about a girl), I oscillated between feeling pretty worthless and somber to feeling enraged and furious. These songs are designed to capture that—from the beat track being kind of cheeky and passive-aggressive to “10.21.13” being more…well, aggressive-aggressive. However both kind of bear that same shade of “no matter how pissed I am, I’m still not really over it.” I don’t know how many of y’all can relate, but that was a feeling that followed me for a long time and still kind of does.
Track Six: The Fountain of Youth
This track moves on beyond that ever-abundant sensation of heartbreak (a little) to focus more on growing up and being expected to mature—leaving behind a lot of the things and people that you held so close during your youth and holding so desperately onto anything and everything you can from those halcyon, innocent days. If I’m being honest, the struggles of maturity and adulthood are still things I find myself periodically overwhelmed by, and I routinely relapse into moments of nostalgia. This song was me doing my best to air that. Also Devin and Dustin are killer vocalists and really helped provide the song with the personality I envisioned for it.
Track Seven: Reperfusion Injury
Here’s another fun medical term. Fact: often, when restoring blood flow to an area of necrotic tissue, what hurts the tissue the most might not be the necrosis, but rather the destruction caused by anti-inflammatory cells and cytokines that are meant to heal but really cause harm. The same sort of shit can happen with relationships—or so I found—you think all you want in the world is to be back with someone but in reality, it just hurts more and never feels right.
Track Eight: The Shadow of Conscience
This song started as sort of a person conversing with their conscience like a figurative devil on their shoulder—the “did you miss me” over and over again as if it’d been locked away for years. The way I acted towards a lot of people in my past I’m not proud of and I try to keep it pretty repressed or at the very least stuck In the back of my head, but sometimes there’s just no ignoring it and it takes over. Then there’s that wondering—do the people you do your best to forget about still think about you?
Track Nine: Bottomed Out
I think the title actually—for once—speaks volumes for this song. Some of the lines in it actually go back three or four years to random notes I found saved on my phone in times where I’d be awake at 2:30 or 3 in the morning, not able to sleep because I thought that, every day, things might get better and for a long time they just didn’t. After a while it start to felt like I was trapped at rock bottom, emotionally, and I think this track—especially Cody’s part—really captures that.
Track Ten: When They Buried You, They Buried My Dreams
Here’s something fun about this song: it originally was going to be a cover of Post Malone’s “Cold.” That probably explains part of why it’s so different from everything else on the release. But a lot of it deals with a sense of loss—both my own experiences and the experiences of my friends and family—that stems from a loved one dying from an incurable disease.
Track Eleven: Sad Max: Return to the Bummerdome
I wanted to give the Sad Max pun one more installment (big ups to my homie Travis for suggesting it in the first place) before closing the casket on it, and this song felt like it fit the best. As a kid, and even now, I put a shit ton of pressure on myself, and a lot of times, even messing up a little bit feels like I’ve let down everyone; friends, family, people you used to love or who used to love you—all of the above really—and I tried to include that alongside some particularly poignant references to older Introvert songs.
Track Twelve: Tension Pneumothorax
In short, Tension Pneumothoraces are medical emergencies that result when trauma to the chest creates a one-way shunt that causes the collapse of a lung and a compression/shift of the other lung. In a matter of minutes, you essentially suffocate from the inside. Besides sounding pretty metal, this song—the penultimate one to the album—was very much designed to capture a lot of manic, dark and introspective desperation; the sort of desperation where you just scream to anyone and anything until you feel like your lungs are going to totally give way. In the end, it was all for nothing—and the character that’s been suffering throughout all the tracks of ACOFATB, by the end of this song, finally reaches the end of his rope.
Track Thirteen: Bright Eyes and Dark Days
So, I’ll get right into it: some of the lyrics in this song are actually taken directly out of a suicide note I wrote towards the end of 2014. Obviously, things didn’t go entirely to plan—and I’m thankful for it—but for a while, it seemed like the best way out of things. This track sees the Introvert character—me in just about every way that matters—following through with what track after track after album after album has been building up to. However, as he’s hanging, the phone starts ringing and he realizes he doesn’t want to do it.
But it’s too late.
The two minutes that follow are some voice mail messages from my family and good friends (yeah they all actually recorded these for me ‘cause they’re kind and supportive) about how I kind of imagine it would have gone down if I’d actually ended my own life. How it would have been a week before anyone even really noticed and how devastated some people might have been. That’s honestly probably one of the only short-term things that kept me from trying again. But it gets better, it really does, and I promise, anyone feeling that way is NOT alone. You can always reach out to me via the Introvert page or any of my own social media accounts, a friend, family, and any number of great resources to help.
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