The Ricters – Otherside
Similar artists: Incubus, Highly Suspect, Foo Fighters, The Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden
Genre: Shoegaze, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
If it is true, as some regular folks and medical professionals claim, that everyone ought to go to therapy, then it must also be true that everyone ought to try to write songs. There’s no telling what the people who attempt this will end up learning about themselves. And at the same time, there’s no telling just how happy they’ll end up making some music listeners across the world.
There’s no official word on just how much therapy the 1990s alt-rock bands took. What is clear, however, is that most of their songs dealt with the kind of topics that people usually only discuss while sitting in the big chair. Another thing that is obvious is the fact that these songs have helped countless people who have found themselves in these songs.
The Ricters’ “Otherside” is a well-played, emotionally charged alt-rock song that brings to mind the honest, often tortured rock artists of the 1990s. This might be interesting enough, but the group isn’t interested merely to fit into a certain niche and nothing else. “Otherside” is a song in which the writers reveal they are unafraid of great depths and a tune that is masterfully performed.
KINO MOTEL – Headless
Similar artists: Moody Beaches, The Drones, Gareth Liddiard, Rowland S. Howard
Genre: Post Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Make no mistake about it, some truly horrible art has been made by people obsessed with depravity. For every Charles Baudelaire and Salvador Dali, you get a few hacks, such as those of Andy Warhol and Henry Miller. A love for the smellier things in life doesn’t guarantee an artist will actually find a story to tell. But it may send them down a path where they’ll learn compassion.
After all, the world is an imperfect place made this way by imperfect people. We like to see movie stars that look nice and singers that are always in tune. But some of us are fascinated when things go wrong, when actors’ faces look weird, and when singers can’t hit their notes to save their lives. Seems more honest this way.
KINO MOTEL’s “Headless” is a great duet. It’s meant to sound like a couple from the era of black-and-white films in which Bogart finds a way to win it, asked to sing. It creaks like the floors of a dusty motel at 4 o’clock in the morning. It’s the music that Marlowe might’ve made had he decided that being a pop star was more fun than solving cases. Yeah, there’s a story worth hearing here.
