Slung – Collider
Peace and love are the most important things in the real world. We shouldn’t forget that. But let’s just try and keep them out of art and entertainment. To ask this and make it come true might not be too difficult. Nobody wants them.
Just look at the movies being made by the big studios and streaming websites. They all include at least one murder, one charismatic serial killer and a whole bunch of questions that the screenwriters bring up but never manage to fully answer.
The peace and love movies? Sure, they’re still being financed. But the budgets are small, and they, usually, end up as projects for children’s television stations condemned to be watched by kids and parents who don’t want to set a bad example.
What really went on in Slung’s “Collider”, and who pushed the trigger? We might never know. But there’s certainly evidence of foul play. Slung play alt-rock as if trying to soundtrack an ancient course. Listeners will be happy with the grunge dynamics, sure. However, it’s that smell of evil omens and burning timber that will most please those sickos who’ll find that in Slung’s music.
Phantom Sugar – FADED
If you believe the old historical texts and psychiatry reports, writer Stendhal was so struck by the beauty of Italian architecture that it made him go dizzy, feel faint and nearly turn mad.
This inspired others to go travelling through Italy hoping to experience a similar kind of angst brought on by beauty. And why shouldn’t they? We’re all slaves to something. Might as well be something beautiful.
Indeed, it suits the young artist, most of all, to let themselves fall under the control of beautiful things and beautiful people like priests offering their vows and sentencing themselves to a life spent in subservience. If anything is to wreck young artists, it shouldn’t be the drink or some rare disease but the thing that makes songs be written.
Phantom Sugar makes convincing, modern indie-rock. But, at the core of it, the band members are hopeless romantics. “FADED” is a song about being enchanted and, eventually, falling under the control of something or someone possessing incredible allure. Phantom Sugar knows its way around a hook and makes this a pleasant, bright-sounding tune. It’s an ancient ode to beauty.
