This brief post is just a late-night acknowledgment. I noticed an email I’d gotten a long time ago back when I was trying to actively review other people’s music but ended up having very little time to actually do so. This guy had sent me a review of one of his band’s songs and it rubbed me the right way as I read over it tonight. Here it is:
Song: Wasted Time by The Dead Letters
Listen, motherf*ckers, prepare to have your shit rocked. Oh damn, is that a quietly building loop? Fuck that is genius, IS THAT REVERSED? Hold on to your seathole, because that’s not weak-ass Chan Marshall, that’s f*cking Ashley Bullock, aka BullROCK. Listen to those lyrics! Thoughtful as a motherf*cker.
OH SNAP! Is that a guitar/bass break? Yes, you pussy, that is. We don’t fuck around with weak ass shit, we go straight – BUILDING, SLOWLY BUILDING. I AM SO PUMPED RIGHT NOW! – to the ROCK OOOOH WA AH AH AH.
Now that you’ve been skullf*cked by this masterpiece, you best be snifflin. You’re right, that WAS the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard in your life!
Tell your friends. If they can handle it.
My comments:
What got my attention before I’d even listened to the song was the line: “Is that a guitar/bass break? Yes, you pussy, that is.” I just love how direct and antagonistic it’s trying to be, given how asburd the use of “p*ssy” here is in the context of someone’s reaction to a bridge in a song.
The “marketing” of the song is probably the most interesting thing about it here. From the writer’s tone you’d think the song was this over-the-top melodrama that tries to destroy the listener. I was pretty surprised that it turned out to be a melancholic, introspective haze, because that’s pretty much the opposite of the review’s attitude. So that was disappointing.
The song is thoughtful and captures a mood of youthful indie rock revery, but I wouldn’t consider it for “greatest song in the world”, as the writer refers to it, because I don’t really think of it as a song, more of a state of mind or something. The words are not entirely intelligible and I couldn’t find lyrics on their website. That doesn’t bother me, really. Production a little too sparse on the build, meaning the orchestration wasn’t full enough to back the force it was striving for.
I like the vocals, makes me think of the film character Juno, but a kind of deteriorated version of her that got detentions and practiced harmless forms of vandalism. Or Mazzy Starr in high school, getting pissed at boys who can’t hear how beautiful her voice is because she won’t sing to them, and she just walks past them in the hallways in a dark-colored hoodie with a silver metallic zipper down the middle.
The intro section is very Godspeed You Black Emperor, which I like too.
Anyway, thanks to the Dead Letters for their song. Best of luck!