The Queen City Noise Boys, better known as Never I, out of Charlotte, NC released their new single Finding Hope Within A Broken Home. To complement it, Never I also released a merch bundle which includes a wall flag and a shirt.
The song is actually very unique in the sense that it could be viewed as one big piece with various movements inside of it. Think of going to see a symphony play and one piece having various works within it, this is what I personally hear in the song. To me, it has three movements in which the first is classic Never I in which they somehow have gotten more chaotic and heavy than ever before. It channels the stylings of other popular bands such as Underoath and Norma Jean dotting all the I’s and crossing the T’s paying that homage yet doing it in their own way to not have it be hero worship.
Midway through, it transitions almost at its heaviest moment into an ambient part in which guitarist/clean vocalist Connor Vogt belts
“But I still saw the walls, and I still kept my thoughts inside. Her hair still filled with petals from flowers that we grew with pride. “
The latter part of that part is probably my favorite lyric in the whole song. After this, it goes into a catchy part of predominately clean vocals before pausing into another transition of glitchy electronics and drummer Clint Hughes closing the last third out on drums over the keys. The song goes from a sense of urgency and aggression to a moment of calmness and reflection.
About the song and the meaning, previously mentioned Connor Vogt got personal:
Finding Hope Within A Broken Home is about the internal struggle behind reaching out and asking for help. The song was written shortly after one of the worst mental breakdowns I’ve ever personally experienced and follows the mindset shift between feeling defeated and hopeless to the idea that nothing will ever get better. The internal call for help when you’re struggling and failing to feel motivated to change by yourself, then “a hand reached in” and gives you something to hope for, and motivation to better yourself, even in ways you’d never expect.
The spoken word section is extremely personal because that person who helped me the most during this time was the same person who I was in a relationship with when my mental health began to fall apart, and the person who I felt I could never let go of. It is the confusion and stress behind talking to someone I loved, knowing that things have changed permanently and that nothing will ever be the same both in my conversations with that person and in my own head. The realization is painful, and self-doubt was still running rampant.
I’m a HUGE fan of symbolism and searching for deeper meaning in things, in this case, dreams. It is often said that losing teeth in your dreams can mean that you have issues with your own self-image, couple this with a bunch of nightmares and you have “The words behind my teeth are pulling feeling out of me, and I’m scratching in my sleep pulling rotten teeth out in my dreams”. Then the song sort of “wakes up” with the intense desire to beat these problems. Breaking out of the hole I felt trapped in, or for the purpose of the metaphor, a house, and ending the life I had in the past where I felt pathetic and hopeless and literally obsessive over that one person. I saw that “the door left open”, being the relationship that you couldn’t bring yourself to let go of actually showed you how to find hope within yourself, and let the color in.”
About the music video and visuals, he said:
Photo: Trent Bourke/@trentbourke IG
The music video is supposed to show how having passion for art can help channel these emotions into something positive instead of the self destructive, manic nature that is so easy to fall into. We went with roses because they’re representative of love, and how many of these emotions are deeply rooted in the idea of love. Ross Theisen (director) and I had a few in depth conversations about symbols for the release and when we decided on the idea of showing someone painting in the video, it just seemed like a perfect and natural way of showing art, and how it can carry someone through these struggles. I talked to one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met in my life, Hannah Mckee about the idea of doing a piece specific for this release. She agreed to play the artist in the video, and painted the absolute MASTERPIECE that is now our artwork for the single. The chaotic brush strokes surrounding the beautiful rose as the centerpiece was the perfect symbol for this song and I can’t express how wonderful it was to watch this piece come to life. I’m ecstatic that we decided to get this painting printed on flags so we can share it with the world and it can be on display in people’s homes the way we believe it should be.”
Watch the video for Never I‘s Finding Hope In A Broken Home below, follow and list on Spotify, and grab some new Never I swag HERE:
