Oakland’s IN LIFE wrote its new album Strawberry Blonde (released on September 8, 2023) trading ideas and music files back and forth during the peak isolation period of the COVID-19 pandemic as many musicians did. But there’s a coherence in the emotional resonance of its songs as they deal with the various ways life got precarious for all of us and the small things we took for granted and the ways we thought we could operate, particularly anyone in industries that require human contact either directly or indirectly as in the case of the music industry or music scenes or any of the performing arts, or the service industry entirely. The pandemic has highlighted in shocking detail the interconnectedness of human civilization and the drastic limitations of our current methods of organizing. In the music video for the song “Deliverance” we see the band operating as it once did with footage of the band live at venues like The Caravan and the legendary DIY space 924 Gilman spliced in with footage of the city and Nick Noro offering lines from the song clad in various band t-shirts including those for Sepultura and Drab Majesty. Musically the song walks an alluring tightrope between post-punk, psychedelic rock and shoegaze with fragile melodies on guitar and keyboards with percussion keeping a steady and hypnotic pace matched by Noro’s introspective cadence. The song both celebrates the beauty of the life that is so precarious while mourning the various ways we maybe got comfortable with operating though perhaps it nods to the complacency born of privilege or a survivor’s pragmatic dissociation in an unsustainable late capitalism Dystopia. “Deliverance” captures that mood of holding on to the ability to craft creative work to alleviate the ambient anxiety of today and not to be swallowed up by it entirely. Watch the video for “Deliverance” on YouTube and follow IN LIFE at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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