“Suck It Up” might initially get The Wheel Workers compared to the Pixies or some older alternative rock band and not just because the group has been around since the turn of the century. The loud-quiet-loud dynamic is there but the Pixies didn’t invent that. That was another Boston band called Mission of Burma. But obvious comparison aside, this song has a wonderfully demented structure so that its buzzsaw guitar riff hovers above and then below the vocal line and the frantic keyboards, which get to shine in spectacular fashion mid-song going off the rails and circling back on track, while the drums and bass seem to guide the arc of the song and anchor it as it seems to threaten to fall apart at any moment. The vocals, both the leads and backing, are anthemic in their enthusiasm in expressing a fairly complicated emotion seemingly jaded but ready to pick oneself up to try the things you love again even if you have to coax yourself into even making the effort. Lines like “Stab deep until can’t bleed anymore” and “All the dreams, unstuck, unstored” really capture that moment in life when you really do need to put effort into endeavors you take for granted and have been through countless times. When it’s a creative project you need to summon a bit more of actual juice from your psyche rather than depend purely on going through the motions ritual or it feels like and comes across like phony bullshit and this song is very much in form and spirit the opposite of approaching the music from a place of psychic numbness. Maybe you need to give yourself a little tough love and knock the dust off as the title suggests to get going but it seems obviously worth it. Listen to “Suck It Up” on YouTube and connect with The Wheel Workers at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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