Deathcat – Your Stupid City
Everybody’s trying to be somebody else, and nobody quite believes these sorts of stories anymore. But that doesn’t stop people from dressing up like their favourite rock star, or actor, or learning stories that can keep strangers entertained.
And while people are practising being someone else so much that they’re turning pro, the ones without the appetite or time to do so just need to do the best with what they have, with being themselves.
It’s still radical to be yourself while trying to make pop music. It’s still amazing to hear a band like Deathcat whose vocals don’t sound so much like a city as they feel like someone recorded bits of conversation had by teens on a subway.
That’s the charm of Deathcat’s “Your Stupid City.” This is minimalist punk-rock played honestly, directly, without any doubts. The lyrics read more like a text message than words written by a pro team trying to score a hit. And by doing this, Deathcat knows it is bound to stand out. While everybody else tries to act cooler than they are, Deathcat’s duo has embraced its actual story.
Mikey Demilio – Imaginations In The Dark
Poor ol’ Axl Rose was always doomed to fail regardless of how good “Chinese Democracy” turned out. That was always bound to happen because he’d just created too good a story, and no amount of good songs can beat a great story.
You’d imagine, erroneously, a rockstar like Axl Rose, sitting inside a basement recording studio for years on end, growing his beard and listening to Tibetan chanting for inspiration, and you’d be captivated by the fact that he wasn’t doing something else.
In a way, Mikey Demilio is a lot like the Guns N’ Roses singer. You get the impression that he, and a few others like him, are actively fighting against the instinct to go out, to be seen, to enjoy themselves. Naturally, you start to wonder why?
The reason is captured in the tender, emotional and rather shapeless sound of Mikey Demilio’s “Imaginations In The Dark.” This is music, purposely, made to be so soft that your imagination in itself can help it take whatever shape you desire. This is the music of someone who’s chosen a kind of musical isolation so that you too can step into this world.
