Barry Tree – Luxury
It’s doubtful that Diego Maradona was actually the best footballer to ever kick a ball. It’s undeniable that he is, however, the most beloved. And, had he been born in a rich home in Buenos Aires, rather than a house that had no running water or heating, few would care quite as much about his story.
If you trust music critics, there’s a choice to be made that the lads from The Beatles, Sex Pistols, Oasis or Arctic Monkeys weren’t even the most talented musicians of their era. However, that isn’t stopping young kids from adopting them like some kind of saints.
And, pretty soon, all of that will be gone. At the rate things are going, the only people who’ll be able to make an album, kick a ball on a regulation-size football pitch or do anything worthwhile will be the kids of millionaires. And, what’s more, at this rate, the rich elites will own what of the world has not yet been purchased. That’s the conflict driving Barry Tree’s new single.
“Luxury” isn’t just a song about how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This isn’t a call to change things. It’s a lament about an inevitability. It seems fitting that Barry Tree’s brand of alt-rock isn’t immediate, hooky, and desperate to get your attention. The band takes its time here and finds comfort in every guitar chord allowed to ring out and in every whispered vocal. But, maybe, that’s just a way to announce that this Texas band is anxious to be different, to earn real fans. In a world where the rich kids always seem to win, give your support to someone not even looking to win!
hesitant – cold dead heart
Getting “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to become a regional, and then global hit, was the kind of information that arrived to some as unexpected as when they hear on the news that guerrilla forces in some country that they don’t know much about have seized power and declared war on various Western nations. It was stramge surprising, and impossible to ignore.
Since then, many analysts have tried to make sense of why what happened occurred as it did. Perhaps audiences were just sick of faceless, cheerful pop music. Perhaps people were just depressed because of economic upheavals, military conflicts, and the feeling that the world wasn’t getting any better. Or, maybe, there were just too many great guitar bands looking to get noticed. The world may be, again, ready for a new version of grunge and for a band like hesitant.
The fact of the matter, and it is a frequently proven truth, pop trends are cyclical. It might be grunge’s time to rear its unwashed, long-haired-covered once again. This would be great news for those who are prepared, such as hesitant, a group whose single “cold dead heart” captures all of the best features of early 90s alt-rock. It’s a powerful, if pessimistic, look at love, the planet and the future. It’s dynamic and hooky.
And it is delivered with the kind of emotion that has the quality of letting you know exactly what the musicians feel about things before they’ve had the chance to tell you. The past always meets up with the future eventually, and hesitant are all prepared when that happens.
