LAUGHING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE:
An Analysis of Identity and Growth

On October 8th, 2021, following over a year of delays and roadblocks, Santira would finally release his sonic reinvention, 'LAUGHING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE'. Originally titled 'Save Your Tears for the Drought' and announced in May of 2020 via Instagram, the album would go through countless last minute changes. The most drastic decision being on the original release date of October 16, 2020, where on the night of the supposed release, no album was released and a postponement statement wouldn't be published for another week. 

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From first looks, every aspect of the album seems calculated, down to the smallest details. From the more obvious examples, a.e the title, fittingly addressing the main talking point of the album, dealing with a "crisis". The abstract album cover, photographed and edited by Santira himself, representing the mob-mentality missing on the album, is an ironic jab at how self centered the album is. All the shadow-y figures standing in awe at this unknown power represented by the bright purple light beaming down on the audience, almost like a spotlight or a UFO.

 

The album itself is presented to the audience as a television show, with the 12 song tracklist being evenly split down the middle into what Santira dubs the two seasons of LTTA. Season One kicks off with the fittingly titled 'PILOT', a four-minute ever-growing sonic landscape that gently carries the audience into the world of LTTA. From the very opening line of the album, "I might need me a fresh start," the themes of growth and identity are presented, while also being a more literal reference to his sonic reinvention going into this album, with a much more confident voice and experimental instrumental palate than his older music. The song explores Santira's recent and new struggles with his mental health before a sudden beat-switch happens, in which Santira questions his faith in a higher being to steer himself in the right direction. Analogies of a fire in his room are used throughout the song to represent a silent internal struggle, and a callback to the album's title is used to represent his ability to hide his emotions and struggles before the song fades out, leading into the next track; TROUBLE.

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TROUBLE was the newest addition to the album, being added in replacement of "TRUST" in summer of 2023. Being one of the best songs on the album, much like "INSOMNIA", "MIDNITE", and "APOCALYPSE", TROUBLE tackles the subject of identity and mental health in a different manner than the rest of the album, by channeling it through another person; in the case of the aforementioned songs, a romantic partner. TROUBLE opens with a reverb drowned chorus where Santira distantly sings about falling, each chorus into a different feeling. In the case of the first verse, he speaks on falling out of love with the girl in the song. Within the verse, he talks about the relationship going south to the point of him having to travel across the country to avoid confrontation with her. Then Santira mentions another theme that becomes more and more prominent as the album continues, drug use. He details his recollection of good memories of his partner when he smokes, and how poorly he sees the relationship once he's come down. He ends with mentioning a major loss of sleep over the loss of this love, a topic most prominent on track 8, "INSOMNIA". leading into the second hook, Santira speaks about being pulled over on the way to visit his partner, in which he suffers a breakdown over an identity crisis, "This is not me in this wallet, that is not you in my noggin," before once again calming himself down using something shallow as the aforementioned drug use, but in this chorus, that being physical intimacy. "On top of you, our eyes say the words we can't speak. Thrust, now I'm falling" After a drug-induced outro plays, the album takes a sudden turn with the minimalist lyric-driven song, SKYHIGH.

 

SKYHIGH is easily the most stripped back song on the album, and is the first song in the tracklist completely produced by Santira himself. In the song, Santira speaks on the cross-country trip mentioned in TRUST, which he stated was the entire inspiration for the album, as stated in his interview in the 'Waiting for the Apocalypse' magazine. "One of the stops on the way that I didn't expect to impress me and stick with me as much as it did was Wyoming. The reason I never cared about the place is the same reason why I ended up loving it as much as I did; there's absolutely nothing to do there, just miles upon miles of mountains and barely populated towns. With all that time and space to myself, that's where my inspiration for the album really began to come into fruition." Throughout the first verse of SKYHIGH, Santira details his time in Wyoming as a mental recharge in isolation, and taking the time to weigh the consequences of his recent actions and methods of coping, mentioned in the previous two songs. The chorus is an obvious facade in which he tries to convince himself that no matter what he endures, he'll walk away untouched. With the eventual fall of his ego in the final chorus, the song ends with a simple but gorgeous string outro, leading into the first of two interludes on the album, REAL HOMIE INTERLUDE.

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RHI and HOE (HOMIES OVER EVERYTHING) flow into one another and follow a one-off narrative in the album regarding the inevitable coming and going of friends during an identity crisis. The first half of HOE takes a much slower and abstract approach in it's structure than most other songs on season one of LTTA, with Santira and RBG collaborator Lost Follower trading verses. The subjects of dealing with your own issues and feeling the need to give an explanation to those not worthy of your time and finding self-love during rough patches shine throughout the first half, before a slow beat change introduces a distorted guitar outro, slowly leading into what is the ending of Season 1 of LTTA, "NOTES N THE NITE"

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NOTES N THE NITE is easily one of the most lyrically striking songs in Santira's catalog. It's wordplay and analogies end the first half of the album on a very interesting point before the dark turn of Season 2.

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