The Ix Twins – Cunning, Baffling, Powerful
Similar artists: The Afghan Whigs, Wilco, Lord Huron
Genre: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Nature rarely gives anyone a fair shake. The handsome, talented rockstars and movie actors are propped up by wires to cash a check made up of people’s poor opinion of themselves.
Nobody gets everything that they want. The college professor who teaches about Baudelaire and Rimbaud never sets foot outside of his town, has numerous unfinished manuscripts of novels and dreams of an adventurous life, something right on the precipice.
The people with tattooed knuckles and beer bottles clinking out of the car wish they’d received a better education and could get a white-collar job. Things are usually unfair for everyone.
But once in a while, someone manages to balance the lack of fairness just enough to create something that shows the whole picture. The Ix Twins’ “Cunning, Baffling, Powerful” sounds like a college professor dreaming of forming a band and writing songs that could rival Mark Lanegan’s tear-stained grunge ballads. It shouldn’t work this well. It does.
Torpid – Tell Me You’re Happy
Genre: Indie Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
I wonder just what my search intent says about me that every time I am forced to open social media, a new wellness guru tries to reel me in. How well does my computer know me? And do they know that I am in need of help more than I know myself? Perhaps I should fall in line and sign on the dotted line. I wouldn’t be the first.
In fact, there’s a craze to find something to fill the spiritual chasm that religion once used to occupy. Now that the Western world has freed itself from this it needs to call upon Peruvian shamans charging for ayahuasca retreats and yogic gurus charging for meditation retreats. Just how desperate and sad have we become lizard kings?
Torpid’s “Tell Me You’re Happy” is a perfectly honest, beautiful song about feeling messed up and miserable. The pacing of the tune works perfectly. It seems to align exactly with someone having a good, old-fashioned nervous breakdown and crying their eyes out. What’s wrong with that? And why can’t we get more songs like Torpid’s?
