
Combo Move – Inauguration day
Nietzsche didn’t just proclaim that God was dead. He knew the culprits, too. It was we who had worked Him down to an early grave with our endless thoughts and prayers, never considering that we should try and do some of the heavy lifting ourselves.
Of course, the moustachioed philosopher didn’t mean it literally. And, naturally, that mattered very little for the priests and churchgoers demanding he be hung from the nearest tree. In the end, it was the scene of watching a horse being beaten that did Nietzsche in, and not the gallows. Now Nietzsche was dead, and so was God.
Rock music has no other duty than to observe and point fingers. Many of us no longer pray to God but to various media-created deities. They thrive on division and grow through prayers. We might’ve killed God, but each election season, we seek someone else to take His place.
Combo Move’s “Inauguration Day” is a song about hope against what seems like inevitable disillusionment. It’s a passionate affair. On the surface, it is merely talking about the tribalism that politics have created in the U.S. But, really, it’s about the entire world. In Europe, many countries have chosen leaders who’ve run on policies that are nothing short of what went on in the late Middle Ages. That’s why you should join Combo Move in pointing your fist and laughing at these new gods, and ask yourself why you keep falling for it.
Mesker – Knowing the Ending
Everyone’s living out off a beach in Central America, married to a supermodel and eating cheeseburgers morning, noon and evening without ever getting fat. As it turns out, the tropical Sun burns a hole through, the model comes with plenty of emotional baggage, and they don’t make calorie-free cheeseburgers anymore.
Life is all about setting the right expectations. And music, one of the best things that existence can currently offer, works very much in the same manner. No, there are things you might typically want to avoid mentioning when waiting for the bus. You’d just spook people. But, by the same token, it’d be a damn shame not to mention them if you’re a songwriter. If you’re spooked and don’t write about it, everybody loses.
Mesker’s post-hardcore and punk ruminations are the kind that you wouldn’t start a breakfast conversation with. They’re terrifying and seemingly born out of long-lasting internal pain. On the other hand, they seem to fuel the sound of “Knowing the End” as little else would. The English band zaps through this like someone who has just tied a debt collector to a chair and wants to let them know exactly how they fell. It sounds like it takes everything out of the performers. But if it didn’t, we’d all be losing.