The late winter of 2013 into the early winter of 2014 was an incredible period for emo music. Many of the albums that have come to define the genre today were released in this period, including The Hotelier’s Home, Like Noplace Is There and Foxing’s The Albatross. These two albums, now staples of the genre and currently being celebrated on the bands’ joint 10 year anniversary tour, both demonstrate a sense of scale, drama, and theatrics that I personally think is sometimes lacking in the acts of the 2020’s. These are albums that carry weight, both lyrically and in their instrumentals; albums that don’t just articulate emotion, but immerse you in it.
These two albums in particular are present in almost every conversation about the emo of the era. However, lacking from that conversation is a third album that fits the description given for the other two to a tee. Released on December 17, 2013, Everything Between Paint and a Wall by Grandview is some of the best emotional songwriting I’ve ever heard, with fierce and moving instrumentals to back it up.
Everything Between Paint and a Wall is an extremely personal album to me – I first heard it in October of 2022, which was easily the worst time of my life. I was navigating my first serious breakup at the time, while frequently visiting my father in the hospital, after a heart surgery had had more complications than originally expected. Everything Between Paint and a Wall was able to articulate every emotion I was feeling at the time, both at my lowest and as I tried to keep myself optimistic. For that reason, I want this to be less of a formal review, and more of me just talking about an album I love, why I love it, and what it does exceptionally, in the hopes that you’ll be able to connect with it like I have. I hope you’ll stick around, and happy ten years to Everything Between Paint and a Wall.
The album begins slow and somber, in contrast to what follows. “Paint”, the opening track, is a short, to the point confession. The lines, “This is a smoke signal burning overhead/I want your attention again/I want us to play pretend.” Begin the theme of reaching out and not being heard that is ever present in the album.
“Seeking Out Gold (The Former)” does not let us linger on this somber intro, however. A rapid drumline and clear-cutting guitar lead thrust us into the album proper. The first two-thirds of the album are a swirl of negative emotion, and this abrupt jump into the faster pace of the album does a lot to help give the album an almost overwhelming aspect that adds to that swirl. The track itself is clear – the lyrics sing about a desire to care the way others do, to feel the way others feel. Lines like “I want to do more than just breathe to stay alive,” and “I want to believe in anything,” articulate a sense of hopelessness and desperation that builds over the course of the album. A desire to change is also expressed, with lines like, “I wish I could break myself down and start again/I’ll reconstruct the cavity inside my chest/Replace whatever is left with something that still beats,” getting at an intense self-loathing that builds to be explosive in later songs.
This self loathing is central to the next track, “The Only Constant”. It was this track that first caught my attention, largely thanks to gorgeous guest vocals by Ally Mahoney. Going through a breakup as I was when I found the song, lines like, “My legs are giving out, and these walls are caving in/I could spend a lifetime by your side, but I just can’t piece them back again,” while perhaps a little dramatic, resonated with me in a serious way. The repetition of lines like, “I was built to break/I was made to feel afraid for the sake of feeling something,” continue both the themes of apathy and self loathing from the song prior.
It’s not just the lyrics that make “The Only Constant” stand out so much. The instrumental perfectly captures the feeling of the song. The song begins with the drums sounding distant, almost separated, expertly mirroring the separation the singer is feeling both from himself and the subject of the song. At the first “I was built to break” the instrumental comes closer and grows in scale, with an angry, irregular kick drum leading us through. As it slows again, the previously mentioned guest vocals come in, accompanying the singer through quiet, almost spoken vocals, and through angrier, nearly screamed vocals. Each of the quieter portions seem to build back to the explosive choruses of the song, as if each time the song slows down the singer finds another reason to be angry. The song ends with another one of these explosive choruses, with layered vocals singing three different parts at once adding to that overwhelming experience I mentioned earlier. The sense that you can’t get a grip on your own emotions, that your negative emotions are all shouting and clamoring over each other to be heard while you’re unable to make sense of it, is captured by this in a way that I have never heard anywhere else.
Just as the layered vocal final chorus and the negative emotions it evokes are overwhelming you, “In Good Company” cuts back to quiet. One guitar and lonely vocals comprise the intro to the song, with cymbals accenting some of the lines. It’s this song that the album is named after – using the metaphor of paint and a wall, the singer articulates an excruciating divide between his actions and intentions. The line, “But I know these words don’t mean a thing when my actions scream so loud that I can’t think straight,” leads to later lines, “And does it hurt you like it hurts me to watch the colors run down the sides, exposing everything that the paint tried so hard to hide?”, articulating the feeling of helplessness the singer feels as he is laid bare by his own actions, unable to hide the self he hates so much.
While self-loathing has certainly been a theme throughout the whole album, nowhere is it made more clear than the next track, “To The Sun”. The most popular song off the album, this song truly captures the sense of scale and drama that I mentioned earlier, and the overwhelming swirl of negative emotion. The singer seems almost unable to stay focused on one emotion or thought, bouncing back and forth between helplessness, regret, anger, and self loathing as if dragged from one to the next by the instrumental. When I first found the album, lines like, “Oh, I would give anything to recreate how our dysfunction used to function so beautifully” struck a chord. However, what makes this song as intense and emotional as it is is the build of a different thought. Throughout the song, the singer references multiple times being “made in his reflection,” but again can’t seem to stay on the thought. First it’s just “If we’re made in his reflection, I’m curious,”, and then, “So if we’re made in his reflection, I’m curious, is this all there is?” Finally, at the incredibly climactic end of the song, he is finally able to ask, “I can’t help thinking that if we’re made in his reflection, I’m curious, did God drink himself to sleep the night he created me?”
This cacophony of negative emotions is far more focused and honed in the next song, “7”. Rather than singing of self-loathing, “7” is an incredibly angry song, and angry at someone else. The song is almost entirely screamed, and certainly the most screamed of the album, giving it an angrier vibe. The lead guitar at times seems to be responding to or even battling itself, as the drums rely on heavy cymbal crashes and a pounding kick. The lyrics are hateful and scathing, tinged with regret.
While all the songs prior have built on the negative emotions I’ve already described, it was “Saw the Sky” that best articulated my own negative emotions, and that really connected me with this album. The repeated, “Love me, hate me, kill me, anything/Just let me know you’re there/Let me know you’re there” put words to the feeling of isolation I was experiencing better than I ever could. The feeling of being desperate to hear from someone who is no longer in your life is, of course, the main feeling brought to mind by these lyrics – in my case, I was still going through a breakup, as I mentioned – but also being unable to hear from my dad, my main support system, as he underwent his surgery and recovery, lent this song even more weight. These negative emotions, and the others expressed in this album, come to a head at the end of the song, where a build of the lines mentioned earlier give way to what I can only describe as a flood – the instrumental nearly doubles in volume and scale as the guitar takes on a frantic pace and the drums try to drown out new, screamed backing vocals. The lead singer’s repeated, “I’m drowning” is nearly all that can be made sense of, truly creating the feeling of being trapped in and under these emotions. The “swirl” of negative emotions I’ve mentioned is now a vortex in this moment, and it’s beautiful.
“Saw the Sky” marks the sort of climax of the build of these negative emotions, as the next to songs calm the album down, and shift in subject. “Say Nothing” is a very slow, ambient track, with only a piano and soft strings playing over the famous Death of a Salesman monologue, which includes lines like, “Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office,making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!” that make clear the shift in the album’s tone, as it begins to take on a more positive outlook.
The slow, ambient sound of “Say Nothing” carries into “Shaper”, a haunting look back at the songs prior. There is no song that I have shed more tears to than “Shaper”, and for good reason. The slow guitar drips with a melancholy optimism, as the singer’s voice seems almost frail, and uncertain. The song itself addresses previous songs, as the singer finds the will to live and live for something, in this moment. The final lines of the song display this beautifully: “I am not a promising future, but I promise you I’m not a past/So I’ll dig up some dirt, and I’ll pray for what it’s worth that I’m half the man you say I am/I believe in these words, and these words are enough for now/I believe in something/I will not let you down.” The particular inclusion of “I believe in something”, drawing specific attention to the desire to “believe in anything” expressed in “Seeking Out Gold (The Former)” alone moves me to tears. “Shaper” ends on an optimistic note, ready to move forward.
It’s this desire to move forward that makes “Sitting on Gold (The Latter)” my favorite track on the album. The guitar and drums both have taken on a positive, optimistic tone, with the upbeat drums echoing footsteps as the singer takes one step at a time towards being better. This track also references past tracks, with the line “I will do more than just breathe to stay alive” answering the plea of “I want to do more than just breathe to stay alive” in “Seeking Out Gold (The Former)” (note here the relationship in the titles, as well). However, my favorite part of the song is, again, the ending. The final lines, “I still have all your old songs stuck in my head, and I swear to God, I’ll get around to listening to you and to them again/I’m learning what it’s like to see the colors for what they are, not what I want from them” strike the perfect balance of optimistically moving forward, while still cherishing what’s been lost. It’s lines like this that make the transition to positive songwriting feel earned – it didn’t switch on a dime, and the lyrics make it clear that the negativity and pain that characterize the earlier parts of the album are lessons learned and carried.
As this was Everything Between Paint and a Wall, the closing track is, of course, “Wall”. The vocal melody is a reprise of “Paint”, which gives the entire song a reflective quality, in much the same way as I described feeling in “Sitting on Gold (The Latter)”. Both of these songs can be described as “looking back while moving forward” in a sense, which is an idea I personally connect to greatly. “Wall” is a veritable climax to the album, summarizing the lessons learned with, “I’ve never felt so afraid to breathe in, because I know the air won’t be the same/But I’m doing it anyways, because I won’t pretend to spend a lifetime holding my breath”. The scream-sung delivery of these lines make them truly cathartic, but what truly adds this sense of catharsis is the instrumental cutting out for a moment on “breath”, before crashing back in. This gives a sense of weight to the decision to “breathe” in this sense, making it clear just how important of a moment this is.
Everything Between Paint and a Wall is a top 3 album of all time for me, thanks in no small point to the beautiful lyricism and messaging of the album. Seeing the singer articulate exactly the emotions I was feeling at my very lowest, and still move forward, did so much for me in a way that most albums simply don’t manage. The instrumentals understand the weight of the lyrics and topics perfectly, and are never lacking in scale and importance. Everything Between Paint and a Wall is a veritable masterpiece, and a clear influence on many popular bands today (looking at you, fellow Arm’s Length fans) and deserves to be recognized among the other greats of this era. Happy birthday, Everything Between Paint and a Wall. ❤
FFO: The Hotelier, Arm’s Length, Daisyhead
Credits:
Released 12/17/2013
Lucas Restivo – Guitar
Billy Restivo – Vocals, Guitar
Tom Rose – Drums
Josh Rosenberg – Guitar, Baby Vocals
Mike Beland – Bass
The Diygest 
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