One of their later albums is titled Nyctophilian and that may be the best way to describe Stockholm’s THEN COMES SILENCE and just leave it at that. It’s the love of darkness and some would describe nyctophilia as arousal brought upon by darkness and night. Perfect. There’s no sunshine and flower power neo-psychedelic here. It’s goth with muscle. It’s theater with a dangerous vibe.

It’s a strange irony that I’m drawn to the dark of night and still struggle to stay awake past 11pm. That wasn’t all the case. It’s just the pattern that things have fallen into. Wake up while it’s still dark, yes indeed, but my head is drooping by 10 on most nights. Maybe it’s the exhaustion of thinking too much all the time. Maybe it’s age. It’s just funny. I’m an aging vampire.

All I know is that while Sweden is as capable of any region of the world of turning out cheesy pop songs, when they go hard and dark they don’t fool around. Makes sense for one of those northern places where the sun sets and doesn’t come back up for a couple months. I think I’d like to experience that.

I’m still processing some thoughts this morning on a conversation I had last night, or rather a conversation I tried to have and gave up. It was born of my frustration with friendships that have devolved into an endless string of memes and cheap laughs. The subject never went anywhere and it became just another brick wall. It was another real conversation that nobody wants to have. The closest anyone will get to talking about anything in a real sense is trading political barbs. Even that is superficial stuff. It’s nothing deep or solution based. It’s brief confirmations of mutual disdain for this person or that person. It’s superficial expressions of disgust where a subtext of fear and insecurity about everything is visible but never actually touched upon. Even with that topic it never really goes anywhere. It’s repetitive. It’s a smokescreen. It’s avoidance of anything with meaning. It’s about bantering on about externals so we don’t have to face anything connected to real emotion. It’s false. It’s echoes of barroom bullshit. It’s an empty glass at last call.

I don’t really want to do it anymore. If there is nothing left between any of us but the desire to fill the distance and silence with cheap laughs so we don’t have to acknowledge it’s over, I’d rather just do the Irish exit and disappear without saying goodbye. Or if we are just numbing some pain together let’s cut the nonsense and share the pain together. Let’s rip the bandaids, expose the wounds and get through it, helping each other heal. I’m not sure which it is, but it’s not something I want to be a part of, this extended falsehood. If I’m going to feel alone, I’d rather just be alone. I’m one of those rare people that rarely feels lonely when I’m alone. It only hits me during these other empty exchanges.

These are my thoughts this morning. If I wanted to have empty, inauthentic banter, I would have kept drinking in bars with strangers.

On a much more positive note, since no day has no positive notes, it almost looks like it could snow this morning. All the indicators are there. It probably won’t come, with the morning slowly warming, but it wouldn’t be unwelcome. The first snowfall of any season is always… beautiful.