Blazing Fires And Helicopters On The Frontpage Of The Newspaper. There's A War Going On And I'm Marching In Heavy Boots
Little is known about Suffocate For Fuck Sake. They are a 7 person band from Sweden. One of the members is called Tommy Norin and we don't know the rest. Their earliest sign of existence was a self-released eponymous four track EP in 2004, followed up by their first full album in 2008. They subsequently disappeared off the face of the earth for 8 years, with no online presence, until releasing "In My Blood" in 2016. They then completely disappeared again for over four years, before finally making a facebook and instagram account to promote their fourth release: "Fyra" (which means four in Swedish). They did about two gigs in Scandinavia and barely posted for four more years before releasing their latest single "to rest in the trust, that creates the world". I say single, but it is a 20 minute long piece in four movements based on a hundred year old Swedish poem. In fact, all of SFFS's albums have been based on spoken word media, mostly documentaries, their songs featuring long sections of the source material alternated with music in a way that empowers both.
This post is about their 2008 ablum "Blazing Fires And Helicopters On The Frontpage Of The Newspaper. There's A War Going On And I'm Marching In Heavy Boots". It is their most famous album, still incredibly niche but doing rounds in the genre's circles. Universally acclaimed by the approximately 2000 people who have listened to it. The album is based on the 2006 radio documentary "Jag Skulle Kunna Vara USA:S President" by author Linda Boström Knausgård. The 42 minute autobiographical documentary details Linda's struggle with bipolar disorder, specifically her first manic episodes and subsequent institutionalisation in the Katarinahuset mental health clinic. It features the voices of Linda, Linda's mother Ingrid, and Linda's best friend who is confusingly also named Linda.
Suffocate For Fuck Sake mix this documentary with ambient music, shoegaze and screamo, occasionally described as post-screamo. Throughout the album they provide emotional feedback for the documentary, augmenting Linda's feelings, dragging you into the mental state she and her support cast would have been in at the time. It's a very straining experience which is at the best of times calm, relaxing and hopeful. At other times it is tense, agry or simply desolate. The story is split into 8 tracks, all of which have titles which are direct (translated) quotes from the documentary. The entire translation features in the album liners (linked below). It's important to note that the booklet only includes the documentary translation and not any of the lyrics, of which there are no available records anywhere. All lyrics in this post are based on my own auditory observations an interpretation.
Track by track walkthrough
The album's opening track, "Blue Lights and Sunshine", starts with a single downtuned guitar playing a slow and sad 8 note pattern, accompanied by the voices of Linda's mother and friend. With unsteady voices they recount Linda's manic period. You are immediately confronted with the impact of the situation, like you're thrown into a dark place. The final line of this section is the title of the documentary: "One time you said you could be president of the USA". The song then switches into a more tense guitar buildup as we hear Linda for the first time, describing her hallucinations on one of Stockholm's main roads, surrounded by blue lights and sunshine. She feels free. This is when the first real riff kicks in, strong and solid, unwavering. Until it slows down again into the tense downtuned guitar from the beginning and we hear the vocalist for the first time, repeating "Today I saw the ground starting to shake". His voice shakes too. Slowly the drums set in until everything breaks down and the vocals turn to screams: "Today I saw the end of times". Personally this sections feels like a panic attack. When you have a panic attack, it does feel like the world is ending, like you're witnessing the end of times right in front of you and there's nothing you can do about it. But the music doesn't sound panicked, it sounds firm and blissfully unaware. Like Linda was witnessing the end of times and she had no idea, but it did hit her loved ones. The section fades back into that same guitar pattern, now played even lower to the point you can almost feel it in your stomach. It's like the feeling that something bad is going to happen and you just can't shake it. It often starts playing in my head when I'm having a panic attack. WHen it does, I know I'm about to see the end of times. The second half of the song features ambient music, composed of what sounds like slowed down reversed guitar notes joined later by piano and plucked guitar strings, which accompany Linda's best friend as she recounts an incident where she found Linda at home having an episode. The last line: "Yes, of course I was scared".
"I Got Worried... I Was so Freaking Scared of That Window, You Know" starts with a snare drum playing a slow march and a clean vocal section, urging someone to stay close and share their heart. It sounds hopeful, like a tentative request. That feeling quickly disappears in the following documentary section with a single ominous guitar, a droning distorted synth, and Linda's mother's voice. This track is from her perspective, and describes her trying to manage Linda during a manic episode where she was running around wildly and tried to jump out of the window, thinking she could fly. The trembling voice, softening electric guitar and increasingly loud background distortion make this one of my favourite spoken parts on the album. I think it's the most emotional we hear anyone speak in the documentary. The more prominent the drone in the background becomes, the closer everything feels like falling apart. It's like being embraced by despair but in a good way, like you're finally allowed to feel. Like you no longer need to repress it and try to be strong, a reminder that it's okay to fall apart sometimes when things are hard.
When the tension finally breaks we enter the first full on screamo section of the album at the start of "We Are Driving Through Darkness". This track stands out because because even Linda's recounting of her manic episode is accompanied by drums and guitar with a clear rock vibe, whereas all other documentary segments feature more ambient or shoegaze-y instrumentation. This takes place near the start between two powerful screamed sections, and for the entire middle section of the song where Linda is talking about all her impulsive decisions. The end of this section is where the album's title is taken from. The last 1.5 minutes of the track are a completely different song. Just one guy with an acoustic guitar, strumming and singing. For a couple notes it reminds me of Radiohead. "I want my head to work in the appropriate way". I think this is a sentiment which can be matched by anyone who struggles with mental health issues. Why can't my head just work the way it does for normal people? Why can't I just be normal? "You'll never act in the appropriate way". Others notice it too when you're not doing well, when you're cating off. But most importantly you notice it yourself and it's hard to see the end of it. It feels like you'll never be normal, like you will always be your issues. This sentiment is echoed by the screeching guitar feedback which ends the song and opens the next one.
The longest track on the album also starts with a screamo section of which I can't quite understand the lyrics. It sounds panicked, very panicked, tense. The last line is clearly identifyable: "Will I never forget?". Then comes one of the most haunting sections on the album. An ethereal sounding bass and electric guitar patter guides Linda as she describes her life. "Summer of '99. I'm doing well. I go to the movies. Meet friends. Eat breakfast in bed. A lot of stuff is going on, I got my first book published. Started a new job with the city theatre. I'm going to Japan this autumn to recieve a prize for my poetry. I am twentysix and full of plans. But none of that is going to happen. Something completely different is." Silence. Then every instrument at once: X-X-XX. This pattern. Repeating. The gap in between filled with just drums and the reverb of all the guitars and bass guitars which hit as one. It's like a punch in the gut. Like someone broke something you held dear. It's a perfect followup on Linda's monologue. I thought about this a lot, especially when I was 26 myself. I used to have so many plans. Go to uni, get a degree, play football, maintain a healthy relationship with my girlfriend, make friends, live in different places. And one by one all those dreams had fallen through because of my failing mental health. None of what I had planned happened. Something completely different did. Even though Linda and I have completely different mental health issues, the sentiment hits. The accompanying music hits just as hard, because the feeling of music isn't specific to one thing. It's the way you want to interpret it.
A High droning electric guitar merges into the background of the pattern. The panic attack intensifies. A second electric guitar joins doing the same thing. All the other instruments keep hitting. X-X-XX. Until they stop, and before they have a chance to start fading a female guest vocalist starts repeating: "Will I never forget?". The regular vocalist joins, screaming the same line. Until he remains repeating it on his own. It feels like those vocals could've accompanied the breakdown. Instead they are isolated, only soft distorted noise in the background. "never forget". Will I never forget what could have been? Will I never forget all my trauma? Will I carry this around forever? It's something I've asked myself a lot. I'm not really sure. I don't think I will ever truly forget, I will just remember less often.
The next section features dreary, empty sounding ambient guitar music and Linda's friend Linda recounting Linda's intake at Katarinahuset, the psychological institution in which she would spend one and a half years. The doctor, played by a voice actor for the documentary, reads Linda's check-in notes. Then the music switches from guitar to piano. First it's just one hopeful note, repeating. Then it becomes a tune. Lightly upbeat. Like you're about to watch a sunrise in a nature documentary. It's still cold, but warmth is slowly setting in. Linda then recounds her first day at Katarinahuset herself. She hates everything about it. But the hopeful piano keeps playing. At the end she comes to a conclusion "I can't stay here". The music enlarges, with other instruments joining into a beautiful shoegaze section which reminds me a lot of the band M83, for people who have heard of them. It sounds almost orchestral with the bombastic percussion and choir-like voices in the background. It sounds like spreading your wings. And Linda does spread her wings. She runs through the hallway, kicks down the security guard and runs out onto the ringroad, "jump in a car parked just outside the gates and I yell "GO!", just like they do in movies.". After 19 minutes, the longest track on the album fades.
"A Japanese Flag" opens with cacophonous percussion and rushed sounding vocals. More cacophony comes in from the guitars until it all stabilises into a rhythm. The percussion keeps playing along with the guitars. Tension is in the air. There's a large drum in the background. Boom. Boom. Boom Boom Boom. It keeps playing that pattern louder and louder and louder. It's like you're slowly hearing something break. Like someone is barging down a door and when they finally break through only silence remains. In this silence, later filled in by acoustic guitars, Linda's mother talks about her own struggles whilst Linda is institutionalised, and how her Etheopian neighbour tries to cheer her up with food. Then we break chronology for a moment. Linda describes her new stuff, which includes the titular japanese flag. Her mother describes meeting her in a café. Linda is carryinig thirty shopping bags. She doesn't care at all that her ex is also at the café. Linda continues "Mom hates alkl of my new stuff. Mam hates that I am having fun. She says I'm really not having fun at all."
"But I am. I am having fun, mom.". This last line is on a new track, and it might explain why we were back in Linda's manic episode for a second. "I Keep My Eyes on the Ground, Afraid of Meeting Someone I know" describes the contrasting side of bipolar disorder. From mania you go into depression. This one starts with a rock beat similar to "We Are Driving Through Darkness" for the opening section. But then it turns into overlapping long organ-like notes. Linda talks about her depressive days. The doctor reads a patient report. More organ notes play, like a funeral. It's ambient music of the sad kind. "Linda sees no possibilities to break out of her old habits and also suffers from guilt over what she does during her manic periods. Linda is currently having trouble finding herself at lease in any situation." More and more and higher organ notes join, like it's been building up to a breakdown for the entire time Linda and her doctor have been talking.
That breakdown finally comes in the form of [Empty], so named because it's the only track on the album which does not feature any audio from the documentary. As such, there is nothing to name the track after. This is a 3.5 minute screamo track. The lyrics are hard to make out but the music is rough, aggressive. It carries the emotions more often found in regular screamo. It slows down with some low droning notes and a steady drum beat before it has a sort of breakdown again. "I never expected this from you" is the reoccuring line here. There is more but I can't quite make out what it is. I think this one line is enough for the sentiment to hit. People look at you during your early life when you're doing well and they would never expect you'd end up like this. Sad, broken. You never expected it from yourself either it. I certainly never expected I would be here. Neither did my parents. And I hate myself for it. "Bring it on". "We are dri....". I can't make out the final word. It sounds like driving. I'm not sure what it would mean. More hard hitting notes with every instrument at once. Notes you can feel in your stomach if the speakers are loud enough.
That leaves us with one final track. The one with the most powerful title. "They Try To Cheer Me Up By Saying I Did Once Live a Functioning Life". Soft piano plays along with an electric guitar, the kind that plays after a painful scene in the aftermath. A male and female voice sing beautifully together. Like they're handling something delicate. "The sunrise, we'll tear it down. The shadow. The shattred power". It sounds ethereal. it sounds like you're crying whilst someone is holding you. Like distilled sadness. The next part features an electric guitar playing tenderly. Linda's mothertalks. "the ups and downs were insane, it could very within an hour. Just like that it could change." So does Linda's friend. "It was just an amazing capability out of this world to turn like that somehow". Then Linda herself. "Autumn and winter disappear. It becomes spring, summer and autumn again." "Nothing works. I haven't payed my bills in months. A nurse takes me to the welfare authorities. Instalment plans, cause of "special circumstances". They try to cheer me up by sating I did once live a functioning life. It's like they they're talking about someone else".* Then the electric guitar intensifies ever so slightly, and the vocalist sets in. Screamed vocals over shoegaze. It's mostly unintelligible except one repeating line: "Follow my lead". The screams hit exactly as they should, they have an emotional weight to them. It feels like being guided out of your lowest point. Everything hurts, you feel awful, but someone shows you a tiny light with those screams. This section hits very hard. People have, in fact, tried to cheer my up by saying I did once live a functioning life. And for a long time that was so long ago that I could barely remember. Because between the ages of 18 and 26 I did not function. And I could barely remember what it was like to function. And it hurt, a lot. And I wish I had those screams to guide me out of it. And I did, but it took a while. Just like it did for Linda.
The last 4 minutes of the album have linda discussing life after Katarinahuset. First she mentions how she's always scared raising her children with her bipolar disorder. "You have to analyse each situtation and always be prepared for disaster to hit. But what if you, yourself, are that disaster?". On january 1st, 2001 she leaves Katarinahuset. She sees her contact from the institution every week. She studies part-time. She gets a stiped to live on Gotland and write another book. She pronounces her last couple sentences accompanied by tense but stable ambient music, with the music from the documentary slightly bleeding through: "Karl-Ove calls me, he says he is moving to Stockholm for a while. Asks me if we can meet whe nI get back. It makes me happy. I spend the rest of the day thinking about him."
The album ends on a hopeful note. Linda is doing better. Not perfect, but better. Karl-Ove is Norwegian author Karl-Ove Knausgård. In an incredibly tragic twist of fate, he ended up being an abusive husband and sent Linda to shock therapy, which she wrote about in her book October Child, released in 2021. Linda and Karl-Ove divorced in 2016.
Conclusion
The reason why I like this album so much is twofold. For one I think the music and documentary are in perfect synergy. They really strengthem each other and intensify the emotional effects. Secondly, I think this experience is relatable for anyone with mental health issues, not just people with bipolar disorder. Feeling off, struggling to live a normal life, feeling like things will never get better. They're universal experiences for people who are straight up having a bad time in their own head. I listen to this album a lot when I feel really really bad. Not because it makes me feel better, because it doesn't much at all. But it does make me feel seen, like I am not alone in my suffering. It reminds me that depression, panic and anxiety are things other people have felt and survived as well. It's an album which makes me more likely to self-harm but less likely to kill myself. And because I still struggle to live a functioning life we take those sometimes. I'm grateful a friend introduced me to this album a couple years ago, because I've really connected with it. In fact, this is my second time blogging about it. This took a long time to write, but I really wanted to get it out. Not because I expect anyone else to really listen to "Blazing fires and helicopters", but because I want to share the emotions that it makes me feel. This album makes me feel seen, and I want the people reading this to see mee too. Things might be awful, you might be so far down that all you can do is scream along or cry, but things got better for Linda. It took a long time, but they did. So they can get better for me to. And that's the moral of the story.
Album Links:
Links to booklet images without the watermark (idk why photobucket does this when embedding).1 2 3 4
In Loving Memory of Ingrid Boström