Egelands – Place to forget
Similar artists: Steely Dan, Muse
Alternative Rock
Egelands embrace musical sophistication on “Place to forget,” but don’t let that fool you. They’re out for kicks just like everyone else.
It’s hard for highly competent musicians to have fun while they’re doing their work. A quick glimpse into your record collection will easily prove that. The most skilled musicians are faced with grand visions, a constant desire to improve, and, occasionally, even perfect pitch. That’s enough to drive someone mad, and certainly not something that easily encourages them to seek out amusement.
But, occasionally, there are exceptions. There is an upper echelon that exists even here. It comprises musicians that are as familiar with the University as with the bar, the library as well as the grimy streets. They use their gifts to seek both the simple and more complex pleasures that life has to offer.
Egelands’s “Place to Forget” may echo jazz-rock arrangements, but it also finds joy in delivering large choruses over distorted alternative-rock guitar tones. The storyline promises the main character eventual safety from pain. Meanwhile, the smooth jazz grooves and rocking guitars produce a clear enough vision of that kind of safety. Egelands’s “Place to Forget” may begin as the soundtrack to a potential tragedy, but the duo doesn’t sound burdened by all these things.
Shaven Primates – Birds Aren’t Real
Similar artists: The Clash, Buzzcocks, Radiohead, Blur
Genre: Punk, Alternative Rock
Rock n’ roll has become the refuge of the restless dreamers, the ones for whom Shaven Primates issue their alt-rock manifesto.
There’s always been a whiff of escapism when it comes to rock music, no matter how much the people behind it might claim otherwise. It’s in the songs about girls and cars. It’s in the sloganeering and revolution wishing. And most certainly, the same can be said about the songs that encourage daydreaming.
Of course, there’s a stigma attached to escapism. One can’t help but imagine someone powerless to accept the world as it is when mentioning it. Flashbacks of kids stuck inside of dingy rooms engaging in dangerous activities may also spring to mind. But, when done right, escapism can be just the thing to help someone glance at the world as it should be.
Shaven Primates’s “Birds Aren’t Real” trudges through the small opening between dreaming and madness. The alt-rock song includes exotic, jazzy guitars and a dynamic chorus. This is music dedicated to all those who’ve dared to dream but failed in the end as well as the ones who still dream and may one day succeed.
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