“Chrysanthemum Rock” engages in a bit of subversive songwriting in opening with a burst of noise before settling into a measured pace with layers of melody and texture on guitar. The song rushes and whirls while glittering with guitar jangle in a wall of noise mode while Matthew Engwall sings about personal decline and how that often comes about from burnout and the depression at so many factors living in a world mostly dominated by the extractive economic system that is capitalism that demands more and more of everyone at all levels while delivering little to anyone but the system itself and its biggest “winners.” Instead you have to do more faster and more efficiently but that isn’t what humans are built for and Engwall’s song takes aim at that culture of striving and grinding yourself to death and making yourself useful to a system on its own terms and not meeting you on yours. The chorus of “Teach yourself to ease the pain of learning how to live again/Prepare your body for the shock of learning to sing chrysanthemum rock”is so poignant if you know that chrysanthemums in many European cultures symbolizes death and the flower is used for funerals and left at graves and in China, Japan and Korea the flower symbolizes adversity and grief. In his own poetic and clever away Engwall has given us a song about how we’re all encouraged to work ourselves to death even if we no longer possess the capacity to operate at 100% at some job all the time. No one has that capability without it costing them long term. But at this point hopefully all of us realize this at some level but in America people largely still suffer from capitalism’s equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome yet it seems more and more people are becoming aware of the deleterious effects of overwork and having little to show for it. This song is a lively expression of solidarity for that awakening. Listen to “Chrysanthemum Rock” on Spotify and follow llawgne at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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