No Volcano – Like the Dead
Wonderfully good-looking, rich or creative people are fighting a battle in their own head. While singing checks or writing gorgeous songs, they keep the fight going and try to focus on the things that they will go through. That part is not glamorous. That part is not mentioned in interviews. And that part is oddly similar to what regular folks go through.
When and if they do write their great novel, script, or song, the aforementioned demons are mentioned by the good-looking author, but rarely by name, if what they’ve created is truly good, the audience will have no problem in working out the details. At the very least, they’ll feel that there’s something moving underneath the surface. That will be the quality that will make them want to return to this work.
No Volcano’s “Like the Dead” is a wonderfully inventive, gentle and big on melodies song about trauma and about getting on with life despite it. This is a love song about all of the things that, if you don’t have a sense of humour about it, will end up destroying your life. Yes, the melodies and arrangement are strong enough that the song could be out wheat toast and still be enjoyable. But because it’s about something even less enjoyable, it’s a potential classic from No Volcano.
Ty Walker and the Humanoids – All Hat, No Cattle
There’s no point taking things too seriously as a general, and certainly no reason to get too stiff about playing music and wanting to be a rockstar. Not these days, anyway.
The mystique’s been shattered, and that’s left a lot of people with less to worry about. Rockstars used to lie about their age, marital status and religion. Some of them used to pretend they were sent by the devil and applied white makeup to their face whenever they walked on stage.
Everybody loves a gimmick. But the fact is that those get really old, real quick. The best rockstars, nowadays, are the ones who understand that the whole thing is a bit of a joke to begin with. The best ones manage to get the audience in on the joke.
Ty Walker and the Humanoids’ paranoid rock of “All Hat, No Cattle” sounds like 90s Beck aping country singers. The vocal delivery and lyrics are great. And it’s easy to chuckle along with The Humanoids mythology of parallel universes and fights for power in those. The song’s catchy as hell, and a sprinkling of paranoia always makes the world more interesting.