Song Review – Page 33 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Stephen Becker’s Bittersweet “The Answer” is a Song About Delaying the Crushing Feelings of a Breakup For Just a Little Bit Longer

Stephen Becker, photo courtesy the artist

Stephen Becker’s “The Answer” sounds like a long-lost entry in the Elliott Smith songwriting catalog with his expert falsetto and emotional immediacy. But for this song Becker is joined by Taylor Vick (formerly known as Boy Scouts) and the song’s tale of impending breakup and the intense anxieties that lead up to that moment gains greater sonic dimension and emotional resonance. The layered and simple guitar work over shuffling rhythms is what lends the song its dreamlike and melancholic mood. But Becker’s lyrics alone are heartbreaking in their frank expressions of knowing things are wrong in the relationship but not really wanting it to end yet not knowing how to preserve it so like many people he tries one last thing that can’t possibly be a solution but can make one feel as though one has done something to belay the inevitable pain for long enough for things to turn around as summed up in the line, “Well I gave you the answer, I gave you the answer you wanted to hear.” But when you hear that line you know deep down, as it is obvious Becker is aware of as well, that such desperate hopes don’t really delay the inevitable. Watch the video for “The Answer” on YouTube and follow Becker at the links provided. His new album Middle Child Syndrome is out October 25, 2024 on streaming, digital download and vinyl.

Stephen Becker on X

Stephen Becker on Instagram

CATBEAR’s Brisk and Urgent Synth Pop Single “Grow Up” Speaks Truth to the Lie of Striving Culture

The brisk pace and forward momentum of CATBEAR’s new track “Grow Up” gives the song an upbeat quality but as the song progresses that urgency reveals itself to be a barely controlled desperation. The melodic dissolves and swells and expertly accented pace lends a cinematic quality to this song about how we’ve all been sold a bill of goods about society and its system of rewards and how we’re told to “grow up” when doing so means to have achieved middle class definitions of success even when the middle class is basically non-existent and that hard work and being “responsible” often means treading water and nothing more. But that feedback reinforcement mechanism we’ve all been conditioned to believe is just not adequate to meet the moment when people become acutely aware of the complete fraud of late capitalism. Does growing up and going into the working world mean simply grinding away at a dead end job with little chance of getting ahead with the promise of such dangled in front of you perpetually out of reach for most people? How does one cope with this bleak reality with ecological collapse and civilizational implosion seeming not too far on the horizon with the powers that be doing fuck all about it? It’s not cynical, as is said in the song, to not believe in this fake dream anymore even as a way to get through to a better job or better prospects. After all who has time for a finding a better job and qualifying for one when you’re working a job that leaves you feeling worn out at the end of the day? Or two jobs or two and a half? When the band sings the line “(It’s a test), it’s a test/And we try, just to find, the cheat code to life” it rings true because the game is rigged against you if you weren’t born to great privilege. When conservative types criticize “quiet quitting” and other such phenomena they’re the ones who are delusional thinking people should have to surrender their entire lives for not being born “lucky.” CATBEAR’s song is less than three minutes long but it gets to the heart of the anxieties of modern life with a catchy song synth pop song succinctly and with a poetic truth that even getting to hear it feels like validation and not dismissal of one’s concerns. Listen to “Grow Up” on Spotify and follow London’s CATBEAR at the links below.

Frances Whitney Struggles With a Quietly Troubled Breakup on the Warmly Melancholic Indie Folk Song “You Left Me For Jesus”

Frances Whitney, photo courtesy the artist

In the video for “You Left Me For Jesus,” singer-songwriter Frances Whitney sits alone with an acoustic guitar on a graffitied former pool in the desert seemingly in the middle of nowhere like a ruined neighborhood once sat. It suits the song about heartbreak and trying to process a seemingly sudden and unexpected breakup. Or at least in Whitney’s words one hears a confusion and an attempt to understand why it all happened not as a path to reconciliation so much but maybe out of a sense of personal closure because the split was a source of pain that can linger with you for years if you don’t process that grief. The lyrics suggest that maybe no one involves understands why the breakup happened making it all the more painful because it doesn’t make sense emotionally or logically. The music is a the sort of sun drenched folk of the Laurel Canyon vintage but with an atmospheric quality that is the hallmark of more modern music yet Whitney’s vocals have a classic quality that is vivid shines in the mix with a warmth to add a dimensionality to the melancholia. Watch the music video for “You Left Me For Jesus” on YouTube and follow Whitney at the links provided.

Frances Whitney on TikTok

Frances Whitney on Instagram

Hemlock Ernst Faces the Specter of Aging and Diminished Horizons on Industrial Hip-Hop Single “Remains”

Hemlock Ernst, image courtesy the artist

Hemlock Ernst (aka Sam Herring of Future Islands) and producer Icky Reels have created an all too relatable and poignant piece of beautifully bleak hip-hop with “Remains.” Streaming percussive textures and rattles run throughout the song as an urgent and desperate tone glimmers in the background while a fuzzy pulse sits in the foreground. It’s like if someone took trap production methods but plugged in the sound palette of EBM. The lyrics sketch out vivid portraits of what it feels like to get older and becoming increasingly aware of how your visibility in culture and social value diminishes when you can be dismissed as a has-been even if what you’re doing still has inherent value, even if as a simple human being you have a value of your own whether or not what you “produce” is perceived as cool or contributes to a narrow definition of the economy. This is especially true of creative people who if their work isn’t making as much money or isn’t perceived as moving forward, but too far forward, they’re set to the side. But often enough this is a product of being seen as “old” or “irrelevant” and in a culture that really only values utilitarian functionality and the ability to make money in established ways it isn’t enough to simply exist and not always having to chase the golden ring or certainly not by participating in a system in which all are disposable. The song sounds like a series of revelations that hit you hard as you hurtle toward and well into middle age. Because it’s then that you really start to take stuff of what you have left and what you’ve given and what’s been taken from you and you have to come to term with what, yes, remains of your time on earth and your ability and energy to do with it what you can that doesn’t feel like a waste of time if you can help it and trying not to despair if it’s not what you thought it would be and if you’re not where you imagined yourself when you were young. As if you have any idea or insight into that when you’re young. With contributions from Elucid of experimental hip-hop duo Armand Hammer the song’s words and sonics hit more deeply and with the weight of inescapable and undeniable truth. Listen to “Remains” on Spotify and follow Hemlock Ernst at the links below. The new Hemlock Ernst album Studying Absence LP is out October 16 via Tygr Rawk.

Hemlock Ernst on Instagram

Now After Nothing’s New Wave Goth Song “Criminal Feature” Exorcises the Legacy of Religious Trauma

Now After Nothing, photo courtesy the artists

Atlanta’s Now After Nothing gives us a fiery story of propaganda and mass manipulation with “Criminal Feature.” The song’s gritty guitar work, brooding bass line, swirling and bright synths and melodic vocals are reminiscent in a way of the pace and mood of “Celebrity Lifestyle” by Swans and how that song unites dark themes of human belief and internalized psychological manipulation with surprisingly catchy songwriting that is a bit of an outlier in the Swans catalog because of that. But Now After Nothing’s sound is steeped in a driving darkwave with great, ascending dynamics and socio-political commentary crafted to make heady themes palatable without sacrificing the essence of the content. The accompanying music video is especially effective in its evocation of the legacy of religious trauma many people know too well. Fans of the more New Wave-inflected end of Killing Joke will definitely find much to like about the song and what Now After Nothing has to offer. The group’s new album Artificial Ambivalence was released on September 13, 2024 is now available for streaming, digital download and as limited edition colored vinyl.

Now After Nothing on Facebook

Now After Nothing on Instagram

Korean Boyfriend’s Noisy New Wave Post-Punk Single “Middle Management” Perfectly Captures the Existential Dread and Melancholic Exhilaration of Occupying the Liminal Role on the Corporate Ladder

Korean Boyfriend’s “Middle Management” pulses and seethes with a low key desperate energy. With a driving, melodic bass line anchoring the song the layered synths are at once noisy and sounding like a lo-fi recording of melancholic yet upbeat synthpop from another era. The vocals aren’t buried in the mix so much as engulfed by the flow of noises including the minimalist, accented percussion. As the title of the song suggests the song seems to comment on that phenomenon of corporate work life of the figures who are simultaneously expected to enforce company policy and take ownership of dealing with situations that are above the pay grade of lower tier workers while not always empowered to actually enact a solution to challenges presented. Essentially they are the second layer of protection leadership enjoys from the consequences of a company’s mediocre product—whether physical or services. The song captures that feeling of constant tension and stress and existential dread of being in middle management and knowing what’s possible and what’s likely for customers and the people working under them and questioning the efficacy of having so much operational responsibility without adequate compensation. The spectral keyboard work in the background establishes a spirit of unease and faint hope and the tapestry of rhythms that interact throughout the song creates a feeling of having entered into an otherworldly zone outside of regular time and space yet the song never comes off bleak, but, instead, expressing compassion and solidarity toward an experience many of us have had or at least witnessed as we navigate the impersonal, late capitalist landscape of trying to survive. Listen to “Middle Management” on Spotify and follow Korean Boyfriend on Instagram. His new album Simple Face is out October 25, 2024.

Korean Boyfriend on Instagram

CR&M’s Ambient Downtempo “Coping strategies” is the Soundtrack to a Brisk Walk to Clear and Stimulate the Mind

The hovering, harmonic drone that begins CR&A’s “Coping strategies” is soon joined by what sounds like a swift wind and background melodic abstraction that is soon punctuated by percussion that is impressionistic in it’s deployment of hi-hat, bass drum and other percussive sounds. The cover art for the single is a view of someone looking up between tall buildings into a blue sky with white clouds coming into view. The song’s enigmatic mood reflects that halcyon view and it feels like a moment of contemplation followed by a brisk walk as you follow your strings of thought stimulated by the changing landscape. But the vibe isn’t Thoreau at Walden Pond but rather the existential resonance of an urban setting that can likewise spark ideas beyond your immediate concerns. Listen to “Coping strategies” on Spotify and follow CR&M on Instagram. The group released its album Stems on August 28, 2024.

CR&M on Instagram

Close to Monday’s Techno Dream Pop Single “Different” Encourages Us to Embrace Our Analog Uniqueness

Close to Monday, photo courtesy the arists

The insistent rhythm of Close to Monday’s “Different” establishes a hypnotic pattern reinforced by the colorful visuals of the music video. Like something you’d expect to hear in a dance club that caters to electronic dance music. Except Close to Monday’s melodies and moods have as much in common with experimental synth pop and rock band Ladytron and the inspired moodiness of their music as they do with Underworld’s percussive tones. The song is an encouragement to embrace one’s uniqueness untainted by and separate from the inducement to conform to the limited modes and channels of expression and communication available through social media and its unspoken system of dubious psychological rewards that rope you into a feedback loop of fitting in to the boundaries of the product of a technology company. The song pulses with a bright energy and is imbued with a heady momentum that feels like the pace of an escape velocity from one’s cycle of participation in digital existence. Watch the video for “Different” on YouTube and follow Close to Monday at the links below.

Close to Monday on Twitter

Close to Monday on Facebook

Close to Monday on Instagram

Nathan-Paul Cuts Loose With the Futuristic Free Jazz Hard Bop of “Outflow”

“Outflow” sounds like an amalgam of free jazz and IDM with industrial beats. Nathan-Paul’s composition incorporates elements of that late era hard bop saxophone with arrangements that bring to mind an era of music when experimental musicians seemed to have in mind compound time and Middle Eastern tonal palettes. Bursts of raw skronk in futuristic modes and sax lines that both snake fluidly and then strike angular patterns before waxing into looping surges that give way to more wild dynamics. He song packs a lot of ideas into a little over three minutes and its various layers embody the title and it is stylistically diverse even with some nods to fusion and all imaginative and impressive in technique. The energy is strongly reminiscent of that scene in Lost Highway (1997) when Bill Pullman is going off on the sax in the night club—fiery and like something from a hyper real dream. Listen to “Outflow” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the Free Trap EP which released on August 23, 2024. Follow Nathan-Paul at the links provided.

Nathan-Paul on LinkTree

Nathan-Paul on Facebook

Nathan-Paul on TikTok

Nathan-Paul on Instagram

Nathan-Paul on YouTube

THEE SIMULATION Weaves an Air of Cosmic Dread and Rebirth on Industrial Neofolk Single “TRAIL OF DEAD KINGS”

THEE SIMULATION, photo courtesy the artist

“TRAIL OF DEAD KINGS” by THEE SIMULATION (a project of Colin Dawson’s of Haunted Horses and Stickers) begins with an industrial tribal beat before an urgent and slightly echoing piano line, harmonic synth drone and moodily abstract spectral keyboard emerges. Alongside this haunted vocals seem to tell a dark tale like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story or a late 60s Hammer horror film. Images of labyrinthine passages and the sounds of rustling leaves stirred by a light breeze underfoot lend the song an air of the seasons trailing from summer deep into the fall. The chorus of “Take your name off me” suggests a spirit of a place beckoning to be free of the monikers of a conquering power and a return to its primal origins. Musically the dark atmospheres, tribal industrial beats and mystical moods are reminiscent Current 93 circa Dogs Blood Rising (1984) but in a production mode more in line with the modern era. And yet it shares that sense of the otherworldly that exists parallel to our everyday of which we can become aware if we’re open to tapping into those psychological spaces. Listen to “TRAIL OF DEAD KINGS” on Spotify. The new THEE SIMULATION album BLEAK LIVING released on August 17, 2024 and can be listened to in full on Spotify as well.