Artist: Vesqid
2020 was a mindbreaking year for listeners of the lesbian electronic slash noise pop band from Toronto, Black Dresses, as the duo announced their breakup with the debut of their final album PEACEFUL AS HELL. Due to a punishing culmination of pressures that I could only describe as “2020”, Black Dresses as a band would no longer exist. PEACEFUL AS HELL was a final sharp nail hammered into the duo’s coffin lid. And the Dead Girls of Black Dresses would stay dead and buried—at least, until Valentine’s Day 2021. The resurrection that was FOREVER IN YOUR HEART is considered by some to be the duo’s magnum opus; Devi McCallion’s beautiful yet eerie lyrics served to once again viciously complement Ada Rook’s cutesy yet grinding vocals. They created a mixture of heightened emotions and revitalized love, death, suffering, overcoming. Black Dresses’ albums tend to begin with devastating and personal spiels of guilt, pain, or emptiness before culminating in a final hopeful cry for love and peace. After all, Black Dresses started as a demo project between two struggling strangers who met across the interwebs, only to morph into a manifestation of the love that blossomed between the duo who found a home in each other.
And LAUGHINGFISH, the 2024 double-LP, murdered Black Dresses in cold blood.
“This is like their third ‘final’ album, so I doubt this is it honestly,” says a reddit comment posted the day the project fell to Earth.
LAUGHINGFISH was first teased rather joyfully, on the podcast episode “Amazing Ape 2016 feat. Black Dresses” by Boys Bible Study. But the album evolved into a monster—LAUGHINGFISH is the daughter of the foul-smelling grime that ferments within romantic struggle. As an art piece, it serves as a fascinating case study of dying love, and toxic codependence; the mortality of the love between Rook and Devi.
“I DUMPED MY GIRLFRIEND,” posted Devi on her Instagram story.
“This is the last one,” Rook tweeted, unusually solemn.
Devi claimed that the theme of the album was “is having a bad childhood an excuse for having a bad adulthood?”.
Rook stated that this was simply not true—that Devi could only speak on the parts of the album that she wrote.
With a twinge of bitter salt, Devi would mention that the initial idea behind the album was actually a “breakup concept album” suggested by Rook—to drag the feelings out in art, without the actuality of them. General themes of the album revolve around codependency, monotony, and exhaustion.
The album opens with “FANTA”, which starts the album with hushed whispers, and low, vibrating synths. Its tone is ominous, and a frightened uncertainty twinkles. Lyrics within LAUGHINGFISH toy with a metaphorical tale of two sisters, writhing in a grief-stricken and broken life. Their relationship spirals in an abusive, dependent circle that borders on dangerous, and incestuous. But slivers of the singers’ real lives seep between the lines. Familiar tales from Rook’s solo albums, 2020 Knives and Shed Blood, echo amongst the facade of fictional sickened sisterhood.
The first and only song from LAUGHINGFISH to drop as a single, “BAD VEGGIES”, is much more brash than the opening track. It opens with aggressive tones, reminiscent of a rather scratchy nuclear alarm siren. Lyrics by both Rook and Devi are delivered in a tone that’s much more panicked, there’s a dire need to get these feelings out from where they’re buried in their chests. A much more abrasive song, it attacks the theme of misery or even abuse much harder, even with just its instrumental noise. Both singers mix grating screams into their parts. “Push her down into the marble floor,” Devi chokes. Even between these hints of anguish, the song concludes with a beg from Rook, “I can’t do this on my own, I need you, please.” The dire need is replaced with a dire plea.
“WOUNDED ANIMAL” follows up with more quiet melodies, softer chords. Differing from “FANTA”, the piece lacks an edge of fear. The song is more reflective of the past, reflecting on change, reflecting on where we’ve come. A rather personal verse from Rook details her past lives, her past mistakes, and her past homes over the years. “…Got a band out there, maybe things will change” especially invokes a yearning for what Black Dresses would bring—despite the melancholy that it encompasses in its end.
But the showstopping track of LAUGHINGFISH, “IF YOU FIND ME GONE”, serves to once again slaughter any optimistic hints that may have escaped in the buildup to it. It’s more of a spoken-word poem than a song but instigates the deepest sorrows of the album thus far despite its lack of diverse sound. Devi’s lyrics grapple with suicidal ideation, while Rook’s lyrics toy with panic over losing her safe space despite hinting at destructive fights between the two of them. The song reeks of death in a more obvious way than the others have thus far, reminiscent of more horror movie-like songs in their previous albums such as THANK YOU. For those familiar with the duo, some verses send uneasy shivers down your vertebrae. It leaves you wondering which parts of LAUGHINGFISH are purely conceptual, or which parts are reminiscent of their break. The song is monotonous and hollow in many aspects, relatively unlayered and empty of noises compared to previous songs from the duo, but this only contributes to its hard-hitting depth when contrasted with the spectacular writing.
“CAN’T KEEP THE KNOTS OUT” with its deep bouncing tones, opens with a similar bleak monotony that’s especially emphasized by Devi’s first set of lyrics—“I laughed at you in your lowest low… No I won’t cut your hair, but I can’t keep the knots out,” she sings dark notes from her stomach. The song is reminiscent of depressive slumps and the consequences of lashing out. But it’s punchy and electric, with an almost videogame-like mixing. The verses revolve around and amplify each other as the story builds. “I think I liked you better still alive” calls back to the solidarity that these dead girls once had, in albums like LOVE AND AFFECTION FOR STUPID LITTLE BITCHES. “Dead girls dry each other’s eyes and pretend for a while that we’re still alive” was sung by Rook and Devi together, years ago.
“IT’S PROBABLY FINE” directly follows the previous track and continues its imagery. “It’s probably fine,” sings Devi, “what do I get if I change? I’ll never change, I’ll stay ashamed” is very much representative of feeling trapped in your current life, stuck in a situation that feels like it’s draining you. Healing, escaping it, is only a distant fantasy. “It’s in your head, It’s paranoid, It’s your fantasy, It’s suicide… I’m sure it’s probably fine”. The repetitive arrangement emphasizes the perpetual cycle of wanting to improve, wanting to escape, wanting to wallow in it forever, wanting to end it, and remaining motionless, moving neither up or down, despite it all. The ending of the song drags out with Rook’s grunts of pain, and a stinging harsh note.
The final track, “THE SILENCE”, has a much more upbeat style that’s more reminiscent of other Black Dresses finale tracks, that tended to close the albums with a hopeful, or thankful conclusion. Despite LAUGHINGFISH’s birth as a child of divorce, “THE SILENCE” plays like a piece that was written with love, with Rook and Devi laughing and giggling alongside each other as the final album comes to a close. But there’s still a mournful undertone to the last track, particularly as Devi sings nonchalantly, “no one was there to take me home”. To “emerge from a state of silence” may seem like a positive note to leave on, but the line is more of a double-edged sword, as to emerge from a state of silence is to enter one of chaos, noise, and pain. It’s going to hurt.
22 individual tracks, 1 hour and 17 minutes, the extended length of the album drags out the depressive spiral in a way that contributes to the heavy cloud it puts over the head of the listener. And I say this in an affectionate way—although leaving me with a rather sinking feeling in my chest, LAUGHINGFISH accomplishes its goal(?) of making it hurt. And it leaves a fantastically vibrant pain, a nostalgic aching need for joy. Publicized reviews of LAUGHINGFISH remark that the project is simply just too long—too convoluted, or even just demo-quality. But from the perspective of a long-time Black Dresses fan (even though I would probably rather be listening to PEACEFUL AS HELL as I walk to organic chemistry lab at 8 in the morning), LAUGHINGFISH is a beautiful yet tragically violent end to the band.
“When God flooded the earth, the fish laughed,” said Devi.
Dorian is a senior in the honors college at Oregon State University, majoring in biology. They have a profound interest in Metal Gear Solid, the dorid nudibranch Rostanga pulchra, and the music work of Ada Rook. Between research and schooling they make art, zines, and write as a hobby– so they are very pleased to be able to write for the first volume of SLUGGER! 🙂
SLUGGER 