Doc Burner – Some of These Days
Rock music’s made for ordinary people, even if the ones making it may appear to be larger-than-life characters. Some of them claim to be The Lizard King, or spread stories about having run away from their home as a teenager to join the circus. But the people who love their music, ultimately, do so because it speaks of the kinds of joys and troubles with which all of them are familiar.
Doc Burner knows what his audience wants. It’s what every audience has demanded from artists since the dawn of time. They want high-energy music performed with the confidence of a great conqueror. And they want this music to soothe them when, inevitably, times get rough. Rock music is, after all, a great counsellor and a tremendous friend.
Burner’s “Some of These Days” draws musically from the tradition of catchy, hooky garage rock and power pop. You’ll recognise which direction this song is moving toward from the very first chords. But that’s the point. Everyone who has ever nursed a broken heart or convinced themselves that things are going to get better, will find some of their truth in Burner’s rock n’ roll. That’s what giving the people what they want sounds like.
Sendiri – Panic (Right on Cue)
Great songs, at their core, have always functioned in the same way that spells have. They get stuck around the head of those who is supposed to receive it. They continue to work long after the chanting has gone down, much longer after the ceremony has ended.
And just like the great spiritual ceremonies that can create those, what’s first required is someone who can whisper just the right spell, someone who can control those elements, people who can give the gift to others. You people just like the ones playing in Sendiri.
The grunge sound, created especially by bands from the Seattle region, wasn’t merely a genre made as a signpost for a moment in time. For the true believers, it is a hypnotic sound that has a lot of truth captured inside of it.
Playing this music, in itself, is to take part in the same ceremonies as those who helped establish it. Sendiri’s swirling “Panic (Right on Cue),” brings to mind Layne Staley’s tortured vocals provided for 1990s Alice in Chains. And, well, it should. It’s a song dealing with the same problems and using the same techniques to vanquish them. Sendiri don’t just make rock music here, but align themselves with the way of seeing the world and dealing with it.
