Fight Back Mountain – Fatima
There’s real poetry in madmen-talk if you go beyond the shouting. Similarly, there’s an earnest, punk rock enthusiasm in how words are jammed together to make up Fight Back Mountain’s “Fatima“.
Sure, the lyrics are either nonsensical or open to interpretation, based on what you think of the band. Personally, I had the words down as some expression of the desire to find spiritual absolution. Naturally, my self-confidence was shattered when I read the liner notes, proclaiming this to be a tune written for the Halloween season instead. Not much spirituality there, at the tail end of a rocky 2020.
Either way, Fight Back Mountain performs energic, confident three-chord pop-punk, propped open by over the top, shouted vocals, crystal-clean production, and self-belief that may just be able to move some darn big mountains.
ill peach – American Pie
Happily, while other musicians were busy at work composing anthems meant to encourage the general population to cast their ballot in the upcoming election-season, ill peach were taking the theme into more honest, scary territory.
Named after one of the most popular songs in the pop music canon, and one of the most wholesome of deserts, ill peach’s “American Pie” deals with the frequent, unglamorous addictions that prevail across most Westernized countries.
It’s a psychedelic rock for the hippies that cannot be consoled. In many ways, it reminds me of the Kills’ first album. It’s tense, bitterly angry, and minimalistic. It’s also not ashamed to make a spectacle of itself, knowing that despite their cynical nature, they are probably in the right and stylish while they carry on with their diatribe.
Give ill peach a listen before they become the go-to artists to soundtrack documentaries about the disintegration of the consumerist society as we know it.
