hardcell – Runaway
There’s a good reason why most of the albums that you and everybody else really love were made by people in their teens. Nah, it’s not because those teenagers simply looked better in photos or because by promoting them, record labels hoped to make kids of the same age enthusiastic about buying the record. Sure, all of that couldn’t have hurt. But that’s not what made the songs.
Musicians who stick with it and manage to maintain their enthusiasm through the years are usually rewarded. They get better. They understand more and reach a greater level of proficiency. The real question is whether, by the time that they’re done growing, they have anything to write about. If you don’t really suffer or get excited about what life may have in store, you can’t really write. And the people who have those things are usually the young ones.
There’s something teenagerish about hardcell’s “Runaway,” from the concept to the snarl of the vocals. But all of that very much works in the band’s favour. This is a song about being scared to be alone and about the inability to make relationships work. It’s filled with emotion and intensity. It’s believable, too. hardcell’s world is rocking and looks set to be torn open in two. It’s good that they got this on tape. These young musicians may never feel exactly this way again. And this is where the really good songs come from.
Fat Brain – Devil’s Son
Rock n’ roll music seemed to be a little fun for it not to be, in reality, a tool of evil and a way to brainwash the youth who loved it. The advent of the music was also accompanied by calls to have it banned, a manoeuvre that only enhanced its popularity.
This idea that rock is played by people damned to spend eternity in hell was so good, in fact, that every band manager from then onward used it. Yeah, it’s hard to imagine Alice Cooper, KISS or Black Sabbath being thrown on a speeding train to the underworld, but audiences bought.
But they’re old now. They run their own corporations and the vast majority of the shock rockers have indulged in friendly, cheesy, kitschy reality television. The people who still want to convince us that they’re playing rock n’ roll and going to hell are the ones who sincerely make an effort.
Sweden’s Fat Brain plays fast, loose, rocking music about being evil and the joys that come with it. Musically inspired by punk, a touch of psychobilly and every shock rocker with face paint on, Fat Brain wants to appeal to your primitive fantasies. We all have them, and it’s time to dig them back up for “Devil’s Son.”
