Music Review // Alex Coley & Afterlove "Hold It All"

The best idea I've ever heard about how your past can weigh you down is to imagine your past as luggage.  The more problems, the more of your past you still can't let go of, the more luggage you have.  Now imagine yourself trying to row a boat across a lake.  All the luggage that is in that boat with you makes the rowing so much more difficult.   When you shed that luggage, shed the past, the load is lighter and rowing becomes easier.

This is kind of funny because during this video by Alex Coley & Afterlove- which is what this song is about- there are images of a boat being rowed in the water.  As "Hold It All" begins with acoustics and a deep voice it turns into these trippy rock sounds with killer guitar solos.   By the end, the sound can begin to even feel spiritual, somewhere along the lines of a modern artist such as Hozier.

The chorus really gives away this song, as it says: "Give me just one little pill a day / I wish it could be easily solved / Then I wouldn't have to hold it all".  Whether it's grief, anger, anxiety, loneliness- whatever the emotion is that you're feeling and that is holding you down because you're holding on it, this song can relate with that.   Being able to step outside of yourself and experience it through the eyes of someone else should help you to move forward.

"Hold It All" ends on this really good outro of music, which can hopefully leave you to think.  There are certainly parts of the past we seemingly cannot escape.  I wish I could say there was an easy way or an easy fix for it, but there isn't that I know of.   All we can do is listen to songs like this and hopefully find some solace in knowing that we are not alone.