Samesies – Like a virus
Genre: Lo-fi Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
There was a time, believe it or not when songwriters didn’t much consider the implications of owning their work. After all, pop music is descended, although bastardized, from the tradition of the bards that recited poems over musical backing about the fashions and issues of the time. There wasn’t much that a famous bard could do if they heard of an imposter stealing his words or appearance. Artists just moved from town to town and got on the best way that they knew how.
Things didn’t change until the 1960s. Even Paul McCartney, likely the most commercially successful songwriter of all time, talks about him and his Liverpudlian songwriter partner having no idea that they could own songs. In fact, they assumed that songs just existed in thin air. Someone, if they were lucky, could just pluck a good one out. Nowadays, with famous song generation, potentially fortunes for those whose names are on the credits, the writers are very aware of the implication of owning their copyright.
Samesies’ Like a virus stays true to the tune’s name and attempts to create sounds that are so difficult to chase out of your brain that they can be described as being positively… infectious. Indeed, the Portlandian songwriter looks at garage-rock tropes like a child, analyzing what they can do to make this the most fun for themselves. The result is a cheerful and blissfully naive single that may prove to have legs. And, when and if it reaches the chart, the songwriter will very much know how to take credit for their work.
Forty Nights – Faceless
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Looking to become an artist in the service of rock music is a positively Sisyphean task. Just like climbing your way towards a castle that never arrives, taking on this monumental task must make anybody feel like they are willing participants in a Franz Kafka novel. It’s hard to understand why anybody would do this to themselves.
Like an honest student of martial arts, mathematics, or … err … of the German language, a student of music knows that their road is never going to come to a satisfying end. This is, maybe, the reason why some musicians go nuts in the studio and end up spending years and millions of dollars in the pursuit of the perfect sound. It is probably also why some musicians never get to record their opus at all.
Forthy Nights’ Faceless sounds like the work of someone that has taken on the responsibility of developing their sound to the point closest to the very best that they can provide. It’s also likely, made with the knowledge that their next composition will simply force them to redraw the line. Faceless is a satisfying, sophisticated, and intricate prog-rock number that integrates alt-rock elements for good measure. And it is also a representation of one man’s attempt at capturing infinity.
