Velvet Sun – Empire
For the most part, rock’ n’ roll is an exercise in populism. It’s a game in “I not them,” and in “are you in, or are you out?” It only works if great groups of people congregate to praise it. Just like the political rallies or the football terraces, it allows virtually no disobedience from the general law. Nobody shouts “I hate you!” at a rock concert for fear of being thrown out or worse.
That’s enough to worry the more aware and sensitive of our kind, like the songwriter behind the Velvet Sun moniker. Rock’ n’ roll resembles the patriotic work that any country that wishes to stay united must do. Just like those, the music thrives off of stories that are collectively told, shared, and plastered on walls. Just like it, a bit of deception is required.
Velvet Sun blends gentle shoegaze sounds and tense, simple post-punk beats to create an oppressive, future-gone-bad atmosphere on “Empire.” But how far into the future is this really? Close your eyes for a second, and you might just find yourself there. Velvet Sun uses this songwriting exercise to explore just how much of what we have between us is the truth, and how much is a convenient lie that keeps us all holding hands.
Lenox Hills – Novocaine
Life never, exactly, works out. The people who manage to slalom through it at their own pace simply find strategies for balancing the hardships differently. But escaping them completely? That’s just a childhood fantasy.
Rock music, modern one especially, deals, for the most part, with individual concerns. Songs talk about things that bug people, that won’t let them sleep, that cannot allow them to interact in the proper way with those around them. Those are the kinds of topics that interest Lenox Hills as well.
Yes, but that means war! It does, at least, for the person whose mind this is all happening. It is often said that people who are under an actual siege never consider giving up. The ones who are under a mental siege that they’ve helped construct are, in some ways, even worse off.
The sound of “Novocaine” by Lenox Hills is all beautiful, lush alt-rock. It’s confidently sung and leads toward awfully memorable melodies. But the songwriting is directed toward anyone who needs to urgently hear it. This is a song about involuntary detachment, about people who struggle to find a connection. The one good thing is that people who do hear it might not feel as alone once they do.
