Life In Vacuum – Hugo
Genre: Punk, Post-Punk, Emo
Songs are a terrible place for secrets. If you’re really lucky, everyone in the world will find out what they are.
Despite all of this, songwriters are known to inject all of their own with their most personal experiences. When they’re not talking in the first person, they’re telling the world the stories of others that have moved them. When they do this enough, and they accumulate a body of work, all of their fans will feel that they know exactly who their music heroes are.
It’s scary for most people to reveal their innermost feelings. This is, however, just what Life In Vacuum seem to do on “Hugo”, a tune about boyhood woes. The singer marks every line with a deep and sorrowful affectation.
The Canadian group crafts its music from sturdy post-punk elements. The bass lines are stiff and powerful. The guitars drop walls of distortion at strategic moments. And the singing aims to reveal stories that listeners might otherwise not hear.
Matt C. White – Remember
Similar artists: Queens of The Stone Age, The Sword, Melvins, Jesus Lizard
Genre: Stoner Rock, Alternative Rock
I sit around daily, envying the people that can afford to crash giant vehicles into one another. Whether they’re employed to do it, or they’ve taken it up merely as an expensive hobby, I reckon that these destruction merchants are some of the most relaxed people in the world.
The best alternative that the rest of us can find involves electric guitars wired to things called amplifiers and fuzz boxes. When plugged in and played, they sound like firecrackers slung unto busy streets on New Year’s Eve. It’s pretty relaxing too.
Matt C. White is another person finding comfort in the noisy stoner-rock sounds of distorted guitars on the track “Remember.” And, when the volume of the guitars won’t do the trick, screaming comes to the rescue.
While it’s no longer than two minutes, “Remember” has layers. The first involves the garage rock bits already mentioned. The second is a spoken-word reenactment of an amnesiac’s confession. The third is a feedback loop. Quite therapeutic!
