Spotlight, featuring Heart Attack Man

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‘Tis the season to be spooky! It’s kind of funny that I enjoy the Halloween season more now than when I was a kid actually participating in Halloween. Nowadays I just sit back, enjoy the fall weather, and play my very carefully and lovingly curated Halloween playlist.

Now, with that said, I would be remiss if I did not feature at least one band during the month of October with some kind of “spooky” twist to them. In comes the Ohio quintet Heart Attack Man whose lyrics bounce between the silliness of the mundane aspects of life to the very real, and heavy, topic of leaving an abusive relationship.

Much like their contemporaries in the emo-revival scene, Heart Attack Man are unafraid to touch on the more real and dark aspects of life. Their 2019 album, Fake Blood, sees the group at their most angry; with subjects like suicide, death, guns, and blood taking center stage, their sophomore record is a whirlwind of teenage angst and emotion that can only be conjured up in the drug-addled, gun-toting America of today.

While I hope we all can’t relate to the themes of “Out For Blood” which seems to be written and sung from the point-of-view of a wannabe serial killer, much like Green Day’s “Bang Bang”. It’s the lyrical content, no matter how gruesome it can be, that strikes a chord in the band’s fans. Growing up in today’s world is vastly different than any other time, and a large part of that is because of the heavy presence of violence.

Be it from the movies, television, video games, or the all-too real shootings, violence is a part of life for the youth now. Because of that there is the presence of emo; there are plenty of things to bum you out today, and the emo-revival scene takes note of that and implements those themes into their songs.

This is exactly what Heart Attack Man does with their lyrics, and while the hard to swallow lyrics may not be for older fans, it’s the teens and 20 somethings that can truly get into it. It’s a bittersweet sense of catharsis for a generation of kids who grew up in a post-Columbine, post-9/11 America where the violence on TV crept into real life.

To be clear, I am not making light of these serious topics by writing about them in a sort of Halloween-esque vein. I included Heart Attack Man in this Halloween themed article because just at face value the band presents themselves as darker than what is typically expected; there is a truly haunting sound to almost all of the tracks on Fake Blood that it is hard to avoid the looming spookiness of it all.

Heart Attack Man have carved themselves a decent place in the newfound 21st century punk scene with their dark imagery and topical lyrics for a generation of kids who each day feel more and more detached from the world they live in. It sometimes takes music, specifically emo, to include all who feel left out.

Growing up now is a far cry from the days of yesteryear and Heart Attack Man tap into the fear and dread that often plague the kids of today. As I write this article the news of yet another school shooting is making its rounds on all of the major media outlets, and that is something we live with now. We live in a twisted cycle of shooting after shooting.

On the flip side there is the escape of music and HAM provides a fresh spin on the emo scene by making it relatable through the horrors we see and hear about each day. Misery loves company, am I right?