Spiral Frank – Kiss (La La)
Pop music, even the one that relies on thunderous drums and punishing, distorted guitars, is a pretty simple format to understand. But it’s a very difficult one to master. And, this is why so many bands and artists have to rely on guiding your attention away from the actual pop tunes. That, thankfully, is not the case with Spiral Frank.
Especially in the hard and heavy spheres of music, you’ll hear about artists getting inspired by some particular deity or some exotic place where nobody dares to visit. You’ll hear about how they needed to be put under hypnosis to write the material. And, very often, you’ll hear about all sorts of bizarre musical elements having served as inspiration for a 3-minute three-chord song.
But why bother constructing these stories? For the most part, to be honest, it’s because the music isn’t all that interesting. I’m one of the people who has sat through many metal festivals, and I can tell you that it’s rare for bands to have more than three songs that sound different from each other.
What is interesting about Spiral Frank’s “Kiss (La La)” is that this is very much a pop song. It’s easy to understand how it works. There’s a mysterious build-up, production that creates expectation, and a big hook that ties everything together. But in being able to do that, in making 2000s-sounding, industrial-influenced post-grunge with a seriously catchy hook, Spiral Frank, even today, stands above most competitors.
Rude Films – Horseshoe
There are only two things that rock n’ roll can do for you, but not at the same time. It can either make you angry or calm you down. It can either make you feel like you can charge up a hill and, once at the to,p start beating your enemies down one by one with a baseball bat. Or, it can make you feel like everything in the world has a purpose and that, because of this, you are free to love everyone in it.
The good news is that, unlike most other things in this life, you get a bipolar choice, and you get asked every time that you put on a record or press play on your streaming service of choice.
And, of course, it’s the latter kind of music that is harder to make. After all, how hard is it to actually get people to fall in love of their own accord? This is why British indie band Rude Films take the route uphill for the single “Horseshoe,” and the band members arm themselves with affection.
“Horseshoe” is a song meant to approximate the feeling of being giddy with affection for the world and grateful to be a part of existence. Watch out! These feelings don’t typically last for long. And that’s why, taking an influence from power-pop Scottish heroes Teenage Fanclub and, by the sounds of it, cool New York indie, Rude Films aim for the heart on this and hit their mark.
