Premiere: Funeral Advantage's Stirring "Black House," an Indie Pop Confession

for fans of The 1975

Chaos surrenders to an intense indie pop lament in Funeral Advantage’s song “Black House,” a cathartic implosion of intimacy and separation. If you feel empty inside, how can you hope to give someone the love they long for; the emotions they deserve?

Hide your cough
There’s nothing left so
break it off or I’ll
force you on a different path
“Back when you would cope
with painting this house black”
So I burned it all
It’s hard to see you like this
but I cannot help you right now
“But then we both realized,
all things were left avowed”

Stream: “Black House” – Funeral Advantage

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Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Black House,” the lead single off Funeral Advantage’s upcoming sophomore album Nectarine (out February 22 via one of our favorite indie labels, Sleep Well Records). The moniker for Boston-based Tyler Kershaw, Funeral Advantage debuted in 2013 and has been exploring the nuanced edges of the “alternative” world ever since. His debut album Body is Dead released in 2015, and he put out his Please Help Me EP in early 2017.

Nectarine - Funeral Advantage — Nectarine – Funeral Advantage

According to the artist, Nectarine finds him slightly removed from the “intense personal emotions seen in previous installments.” His music is still danceable pop tinged with sadness, but his approach is “more straightforward.” He can tell his stories and share what he wants to make, without getting lost in the finer details.

This fresh take is immediately apparent in “Black House,” which manages to convey incredibly deep feelings of disconnect. The song reaches its peak in a shiver-inducing chorus radiating with one might describe as a sad euphoria:

Now I’m fucked
Because you were moving through
a fantasy and moving
without me and I…
And I wish you would break me,
I wish love had taken me and I…
Because you nurtured the love
in this home so I kept you away
Because I’m fucked

“Black House is about admitting to someone that you don’t have it in you to love them back,” Funeral Advantage tells Atwood Magazine. “The title comes from a story my uncle told me about a neighbor who painted his house black and the neighborhood that formed a committee to make him paint his house back to a normal color.”

Taking cues from acts like The 1975 and Infinity Girl, Funeral Advantage layers glistening, popping guitar licks over a tempest of beating synths and his own aching vocals. What results is a stirring, pained portrayal of emptiness and disarray: The narrator doesn’t believe in their own ability to reciprocate another’s emotions, but at the same time, they can’t bring themselves to actually end things for good.

Lust and love aren’t always the same thing, and once you’re ensnared in one, the other is sure to be lurking somewhere nearby…

We shouldn’t fuck
It never makes things better
but then who am I to judge?
I’d rather waste my time
not disappointing both of us
But then you lift your shirt up
Now I’m fucked
Because you were moving through
a fantasy and moving without me and I…
And I wish you would break me,
I wish love had taken me and I…
When you kissed me
you still felt alone
and I don’t know what to say
Because I’m fucked

Dripping with passion, denial, and longing, “Black House” is Funeral Advantage’s dark and beautiful confession. The artist manages to say in this song, what so many people in relationships struggle to put into words – but is this a way out, or a way in?

That’s not for us to decide.

Stream “Black House” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!