Eighteen years ago — half a lifetime, or half of mine at least — I released a solo record called "That Being Said...". It was recorded (badly) on a four-track cassette recorder plugged into an aging computer, and every one of its dozens and dozens of layers crackled with grit and distortion. I think I owned one microphone back then and I used it on everything.

A ragtag group of friends and collaborators helped me make it, at least seven or eight of them, and I will love each of them forever for that. When it was done I held it in my hands and believed in my truest heart that we had created a masterpiece.

It sounded pretty awful. But it changed my life.

One of those collaborators — the first one I brought in — was my friend Jackie, who agreed to add some guest vocals to a few of the songs. By the time the album was finished, we were in love, and half of the songs were about her. When I started playing shows to support the record, my sister Zoey taught herself the drums so she could help out, learning the parts I'd written and soon playing them way better than I ever had. It was at one of those shows that I first met Kennedy, the man who would become my lifelong best friend. He grabbed a copy of the album at the merch booth and called me afterwards to talk about it, and we've talked nonstop ever since.

When the three of them joined the band for good, turning this solo project into a real band once and for all, I knew we needed a name. So I stole the title of one of the songs on the record: "This Glass Embrace". (Here on the re-recording, I called it "Careful Sentences", so it wouldn't be weird.)

Eventually this album fell out of print, and I allowed it to, because we had gone on to make bigger and better things. But the songs on it have haunted me over the years since, showing up on set lists and conversations with fans. In 2012 we re-recorded a few of them with the new permanent lineup. The rest have sat at the bottom of a drawer, unheard by almost anyone since the earliest days.

If you're one of the people who loved those old songs, I hope you love the new versions even more. If you've never heard any of these in your life, I'm amazed you read all this, and I hope you enjoy. The four of us are different people than we were when these songs were first written, but I'll always love them for having set this whole thing in motion.

- Matt LeFevers
March 2023