Posted by Aw yes, another politically charged rock song from the British Isles. This genre has become my new favourite thing when I look for new music. If the band is British and mad about the political climate enough to write a song, sign me up! Except that this song doesn’t have anything to do with politics despite the apparent links to the United States in both the song’s title and the filters used in the music video. Maybe it’s a metaphor?
But in all honesty, this is a song I glazed over the first time I heard it, but after going back a couple of times, it started to grow pretty rapidly on me. It’s the kind of song that is easy to sing along to and becomes more enjoyable because of it.
Highlights
The vocals in this track are one of the first things that drew me to this band. They’re so raspy and sharp that it creates this very dusty rock sound for the song. It sounds healthy, though, and he has excellent control with it too in these little scoops he does for “by your side.” I’m mostly really jealous of people with a rasp in their voices because I have to try hard to get that kind of sound, and most of the time, I hurt myself. His diction is pretty good, too, considering how much rasp there is and the fact that it’s a rock song.
Has been a total inconvenience
Cause I think I’m going out my mind
This all started out so simple
So why can’t you just stay?
There’s some excellent guitar work on here too. I like how The Luka State mixed it. So I don’t know all the terminology, but basically, there’s the top guitar line in one ear and the rhythm guitar line in the other. Every once and a while, they get slightly out of sync, creating a cool overall effect.
Low Points
While I do enjoy the vocals, they’re not the most powerful–which is fine. However, it does tend to sink beneath the chaotic instrumentals. The good news is it doesn’t affect the song that much since it’s representative enough that you can learn the words pretty fast, which leads me to my next point.
The lyrics get a bit stale by the last third of the song, and the instrumentation doesn’t shift enough to make up for it. If they had done something crazy on the music side, I wouldn’t have cared if the lyrics repeat a bunch of times, but instead, it’s pretty much the same throughout-with a few obvious exceptions.
Rating:
I think this is a good song, and it makes me want to go out (and by “out” I mean stay curled up at my desk) and discover what else they have written. But I forgot about this song after it was out of my rotation, so that doesn’t bode well.
So apparently, I need some inspiration! If anyone wants to leave a comment on an album or song I should check out, that would be awesome. Also any bands you think I might like since I’d like would be appreciated too.
