Saline Grace, a dark alternative music group formed in Berlin in 2005 by Ricardo and Ines Hoffmann, is back with a stunning and very emotional new album of twelve tracks, The Tree of Knowledge. The band is well regarded for crafting incredibly dark, melancholy, and artistic music that merges folk and rock sounds and creates a mysterious, late-night sensation like a classic noir movie. Over the previous twenty years they have created a vast body of extremely poetic music and this new twelve track record is a crucial milestone in their long artistic journey.
The Tree of Knowledge is a very deep, honest, heartbreaking look at human suffering, awful governance and the feeling of being entirely alone in the world. These songs are not joyful lies or cheap comfort aiming to make the listener feel better. These are heavy, dark pictures showing the actual struggle of surviving, growing old and trying to find justice in an unfair world.
The title song, “The Tree of Knowledge,” teaches us that looking for the profound truth of life does not necessarily give us happy solutions but instead can show us how things rot and break apart. The song contrasts picking a crisp apple and finding that the worms had eaten out the inside to point out that if we look too closely at the world, we will frequently find concealed rot. It also contrasts the cheerful innocent noises of playing children with the terrifying reality of sickness and death, of forgotten individuals lying in chilly hospital beds while the sun and moon continue on forever and do not care about human life.
In “Lethal Anaconda,” the mood changes to a strong political message on how bad leaders can progressively drain the vitality and pride out of their own country like a gigantic snake. These dictators have no scruples. They lie, pit ordinary people against one another and take away fundamental human rights just to stay rich and in power. The song is a portrait of the terrible despair and betrayal that the average person feels when those they are supposed to be able to trust to protect them take away their freedom.
In “Raven Berta,” the band portrays the heart-breaking narrative of an old woman who worked hard to reconstruct her city after a massive battle but now is entirely disregarded and forgotten by society. She was a sweet and kind person who spent her life doing good things, such as looking after orphaned birds. Now she is impoverished and has to gather empty bottles at a supermarket and passersby look at her with cruel and disrespectful faces. This sorrowful music highlights the cruelty of the modern world towards the elderly, indicating that sometimes death is the only way they can finally escape their pain and find peace.
In “Individual Case,” the album explores the consequences of a country’s laws breaking down entirely, depicting a tragic narrative of a family losing their kid to a heinous crime. Instead, the corrupt courts protect the criminal and accuse the bereaved parents. So the mother and father decide to seek revenge themselves with guns and are forced to escape into the dark woods. This song is a disturbing, deep look into how normal, good people can be pushed into doing evil things when the judicial system is broken and no longer protects them.
“Autumn Realms” is a softer, kinder song. It connects the process of aging to the autumn season and shows us how to find peace in letting go. As the trees shed their leaves on chilly, damp roads, the song tells us not to fear death or the loss of our memories but to accept the decline of our lives.It means that there is a lovely, quiet beauty to the later stages of our lives if we stop fighting the natural flow of time and learn to embrace the end.
But “The Descent” reveals the frightening, stressful side of being old and facing death. It describes the physical frailty and the cold, icy fear of people who know that their time on earth is almost up and that they have only their anxieties to keep them company. The song paints a harsh and realistic picture of those dying moments when all human pride has disappeared and it is far too late to pray, feel regret, or correct past mistakes.
The song “Rooms to Let” is a depiction of the crushing loneliness of modern city living in a congested city. The song is about a simple sign for a room to rent near to a busy train station and highlights how people can live super close to each other in enormous buildings and be totally unconnected. It’s about that awful feeling of lying up at night listening to empty noises like bugs in the walls and feeling entirely cut off from any actual human warmth.
The last song we explore “Weeping Wounds.” It informs us that we need to accept our deep unhealed emotional suffering as a permanent part of our existence instead of pretending everything is alright. It highlights how easily human relationships may be broken like leaves in a storm and how many people in society are phony, pretending to fit in to satisfy others. The album finishes with a compelling message to face our hurts with calm strength and continue moving forward even while our wounds are still fresh and terrible under a wasting sky.
At the end of the day, The Tree of Knowledge is a beautiful and meaningful voyage into what it actually means to survive in a shattered world. Through these songs Saline Grace speaks to the listener in a very honest and lasting way by talking about the real difficulties of poor politics, personal anguish and deep loneliness. These songs don’t provide quick comfort, but you’ll carry their potent meanings around for a very long time.
For more, follow Saline Grace on Spotify, Saline Grace on Bandcamp, Saline Grace on Facebook, Saline Grace on Instagram, salinegrace.com