12. That is Not Enough

Foreground L to R: Elise Killian, Delilah Jane Dunn, Matt Drinkwater
Background L to R: Viv Helvajian, Kenny Doyle Jr., Devyn White, Mia Rose, Burke Hutchinson - 2023 NYTF

This song is a survivor. It’s been rewritten at least five times, shedding skin each pass. The first three versions covered the territory that eventually became “Afterglow,” before “The Path of Most Resistance” even knew it was a thing. So “That Is Not Enough” now ends up functioning as part three of an accidental trilogy…less a sequel and more a pressure fracture.

The opening borrows its DNA from “Opus Number 1.” You probably don’t know the title, but you absolutely know the piece. You’ve heard it against your will. Look it up and you’ll immediately feel slightly haunted.

After the dialogue break, the chorus arrives with a section that wasn’t in the LIU production. It was surgically removed at the time, then resurrected from the original 2021 version. It felt wrong to leave it buried. Sometimes the thing you cut is the thing that actually spills the most truth.

Then the synth starts to pulse, and Vincent finally tips toward the edge. That sound is sampled from the Valley of Bowser in Super Mario World.  (Yes, really.) It creates a place that already feels anxious and unstable before you touch it. I ran it through an arpeggiator so it breathes in this nervous, mechanical way, like a thought you can’t shut off no matter how hard you try.

During the huge breakout I wanted the snare to really pop in a new way. I tried a few things…delay…heavy reverb…doubling it. In the end I took a metal filing cabinet and hit it with a sledgehammer.

The guitar solo after the breakout belongs to the incomparable Jeff Weisz. Eitan handles most of the louder, declarative solo moments in the score, but I wanted this one to feel different…less confrontation, more burn. Jeff’s tone leans into that Clapton-esque blues overdrive, warmer and more human, as opposed to Eitan’s thicker, metal-influenced, in your face distortion. It added a nice touch of contrast. That run-up into the next section feels like the song physically lurching forward, momentum finally overtaking hesitation.

We then hear the re-declaration of “If that is not enough…then what is?” The question looping back on itself, unanswered. The chorus only joins Vincent on the words “That is not enough,” zeroing in on the phrase she keeps getting hit with, over and over, like a bruise you don’t realize you’re touching until it’s already too late.