“Message of Mercy” (Pain in the Yeahs song)

The pounding drums and distorted synths have a very stark and moody aspect at the beginning of “Message of Mercy” by Pain in the Yeahs. It’s industrial feel is reminiscent of when Nine Inch Nails covered Joy Division. The spectral synth melody fits in with a song that is both bleakly melancholic and defiantly expansive. The sound is futuristic like the kind of music that would have emerged in Oceania after the fall of the regime that propped up the image figurehead of Big Brother—all strong rhythmic lines and uncompromising and widely emotional expression but one tempered by decades of having had to be more buttoned up than is natural meaning there is a quality to the music that seems to have come up from a time of pent up incubation of a creative project with lots of development and close attention to how the beats and production would make the music come across as emphatically intentional. Listen to “Message of Mercy” on Spotify and follow Pain in the Yeahs at the links below. The sophomore album from the Virginia-based project Deep Sigh Sci-Fi released on July 21, 2023.