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Aw yes, another politically charged rock song from the British Isles. I don’t know why but this has apparently 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 then sign me up! Except that this song doesn’t really have anything to do with politics despite the obvious links to the United States in both the title of the song and the filters used in the music video. Maybe it’s a metaphor?
But in all honesty, this is a song I kind of 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 really healthy though and he has amazing control with it too in these little scoops he does for “by your side”. I’m mostly really jealous of people with rasp in their voices because I have to try really 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 nice guitar work on here too. I like how they mixed it. So I don’t know all the terminology but basically there’s the leading guitar line in one ear and the rhythm guitar line in the other. Every once and a while they get slightly out of sync with each other and it creates a really coll overall effect.
Low Points
While I do really 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 effect they 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 don’t shift enough to make up for it. Like, it they had done something crazy on the music side I wouldn’t have cared if the lyrics where repeated a bunch of times but instead it’s pretty much the same throughout-with a few obvious exceptions.
Rating: 3.5/5
I think this is a good song and it definitely 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 also kind of forgot about this song after it was taken out of my rotation of songs until I was looking for something to write about so that doesn’t bode well.
So apparently I need some inspiration! If anyone would like to leave a comment of a 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.
