Dayseeking at Nightfall

Rory Rodriguez, Dayseeker, Empire Live, Albany

A barren chest

In melancholic aura

Ethereal

A hopeful reminiscence

Transient

Swirls of black, streaks of indigo

An illuminative twilight

A lucid ambiguity somehow incomprehensible to everyone around me, yet as omnipresent as the air I breathe.

When I think of post-hardcore rock band, Dayseeker, an atmospheric twilight comes to mind.

When I listen to Dayseeker, it’s as if I’m coming undone and coming home, all at once.

With sharp melodic variances and fervent songs of strife, lead singer Rory Rodriguez takes his pain and uses it as a vehicle of mass self-soothing. Resonating with themes of acute loss, depression, and a persistent cloud of panic, Dayseeker brings to light the darkest moments many suffer alone. By taking the unmentionable and highlighting it through soaring vocals, ethereal visuals, and thematic symbolism, the heavy, somehow, becomes a little lighter, and the incomprehensible darkness recedes, just in time to meet the day.

When life is irrevocably dark, the path to that seemingly-forbidden daylight can feel impossible. With more reasons to doubt than hope to cling onto, day-seeking in an endless bout of nightfall is a fool’s errand. To me, Dayseeker’s artistry represents a jagged journey of acceptance, complicated grieving, and nonlinear healing. Amidst tragedy, in an earnest, continuous bid for happiness, Dayseeker yields purpose from their pain and unity from sorrow. Although the heavier growling and intense guitar riffs might ward off some, those who understand the gamut of emotional turmoil seek refuge in each scream-intense melody, fostering a sense of calm in each track.

While others were off forming their identities, I spent my formative years battling major depressive disorder, untreated ADHD, attachment trauma, acute social anxiety disorder, and a stutter that decimated my self worth. Life was bleak, every day, with daylight a rare occurrence. I lived most at peace during the softly-lit twilight, when I could wish and hope my troubles away, and nothing but the calm mattered. I empathized more with sorrow than joy, finding respite in thunderstorms and blackouts, rather than sunshine on a warm day.

When I listen to Dark Sun’s Neon Grave, Rodriguez’s,

“can heaven fall into my lonely earth?”,

Burial Plot’s,

“Effortless, the way you left me
Cut me open with your own two hands
Breathing is so difficult to comprehend
When the air I breathe is taken from me”

Crooked Soul’s

“Numb to the pain, I could drown in the rain, the darker that it gets the easier I can breathe”

and Sleeptalk’s Drunk,

“Where can you run
When the air gets thinner every step you take
Where can you hide
When death is coming closer”

I envision the gut-wrenching loneliness that plagued my adolescence, as my mother’s neglect turned me bitter, feeling the absence of her love, nurture, and support both near and far.

I envision the sheer havoc my speech and accompanying social anxiety wreaked on my system, foreshortening my sense of the future and leaving me terrified of the smallest steps forward.

I envision my debilitating suicidal ideation that left me fantasizing about death in elementary school, rather than the joys of being a kid or growing up.

While I will never reach “fully healed” status (as if that even exists), it’s a strange type of bittersweet to be able to reflect on these seasons of my life, now a fairly emotionally stable adult who’s come to terms with her past. The work will never end, but I am light years beyond where I used to be. With the help of Dialectical and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Therapy, and several years of psychotherapy, I am now the strongest I’ve ever been.

In a rare moment for the hardcore group, they released a positive track entitled, “Homesick”. The following lyrics echo the daylight I’ve spent my entire life seeking, as the nightfall finally, finally, diminished. Now in my first healthy and mutually uplifting adult relationship, this song hits closer to home than ever before.

“You make me feel homesick,

I was free in the fall now I’m lost in the moment,

I can breathe through the night even when it is hopeless.”

Had I found Dayseeker sooner, I can all but guarantee I would’ve suffered even the slightest bit less.

Daylight is most fulfilling when you’ve survived seasons of nightfall.

Dayseeker is streaming on all major platforms.