I thought Deluxe just couldn't bypass my love for The Crux, but it did that with flying colors.
It is absolutely heart wrenching and devastating in the best possible way.
And it is such an amazing companion to The Crux.
I was thinking already earlier with the cover release, the theme of the released singles and the way all that links to Delete Ya video and the combined BBB single imagery that it has to be something that precedes The Crux.
The albums are two sides of the same thing (just like BBB and Delete Ya!!!!!) - Deluxe is about working through the immediate hearbreak, moving towards healing, through everything that went around EOB blowing up, and then The Crux is about healing, about moving forward, owning his own truth he wants to stand for.
I love all the symbolism. This man, I love his mind. Nothing in the albums, the way he's done the relases etc is by accident, it's all done with intent that goes deeper than just the surface. I absolutely adore it.
And what comes to the songs themselves...Man, does Mr. Mountebank hit hard.
It's a true middle finger towards everyone who has been riding on the wave of EOB success, everyone who wanted him to be something else he doesn't want to do or to stand for, or everyone who go digging his "trash" before the breakup and now after Crux and try to get something out of it. And maybe the end also pokes at someone who broke his heart and how she was just one more of those, just wanting something out of him.
I still stand strongly behind my opinion that this guy could easily write lyrics and not just for himself and make a good living.
He must've been offered so many things over the, what, year and a half (?), seemingly good opportunities that all just are for someone else's gain in the end and he has chosen not to do those but instead keep his head straight.
I've said this before and I say it again: he's the absolutely best guy who EOB blowing up could've ever happened. Anyone else would've probably totally lost it, but he's clearly kept his head straight with it.
I'm proud of him, he deserves the world.