SunYears – (Going To A) Cruel Country
Few musicians are getting their due nowadays. That’s a sad fact. But we can’t just blame the lack of attention, fame and money on an ailing music industry. The industry is doing what it can for itself. Its sole interest nowadays is to survive. Record execs are having to patch their old suits and buy discount sandwiches from supermarkets. None of them has been in a limousine since the mid-1970s.
If you want to blame somebody, let’s pick on ourselves first. Our attention span has never been anything to write home about. But we’re now competing against goldfish for who can focus on things the worst.
But not when something terrible happens! When disaster hits, all of us seem to remember every single detail. It’s gossip and atrocity that get our little brains working. And modern musicians will have to deal with this, I’m afraid.
Swedish power-pop artist SunYears has everything going in the right direction with the sounds of those all-so-pretty melodies. But wait a second! Even a character who stands to win so much is willing to open up. “(Going To A) Cruel Country” is the sunniest sound about exposing yourself to the deepest mental torture. Why for? What else is there to bother you once that’s been settled? The music is inspiring and worth whistling along to.
EEL MEN – Sore Eyes
I’d like to idealise the past as much as the next person. Sure, my brain would like to be tricked into thinking that decades ago, all that people had to worry about was what records to add to their collections and what new music scenes they ought to pay notice to.
That sounds wonderful. Can you imagine a world where the only wars are the ones between rockers and mods, punks and metalheads, grunge kids and hip-hop fans? Now, those sound like wars that can be settled with a dance-off of some kind.
But the truth’s different. It’s grim. Nothing that harmless ever happened. Every single record that you liked was released in the shadow of some unspeakable tragedy. Collecting records is something people do so that they don’t go mad.
EEL MEN can well be your new musical obsession, the new group whose work you start collecting diligently. Their debut album and the single “Sore Eyes” have enough mystery, great jangly guitars and pretty melodies to warrant that kind of interest. But can something so bittersweet yet beautiful exist at such a time? That’s the way it always worked.
