What I'm Listening To, 2025.3.31

I used to be of the opinion that all love songs were garbage. I tend to dislike them for the same reason I dislike romantic arcs in books and film. For a love song or story to have any mass appeal the creator has to wash out any of the million quirks and oddities that make real-life romances interesting. Love in art is generally a boring, bleached versions of a rich and variegated human experience.

Then I realized I just like weird love songs about bizarre people finding someone who complements their own absurdity. (Speculation regarding what this realization might say about my own lengthy history of unusual relationships is intentionally elided.)

Art Brut is one of those bands that I adore and don’t expect anyone else to. Eddie Argos has a knack for writing the kind of songs that dare the listener to like them. “Sealand” is one where I’ve risen to the challenge. I find it charming and evocative of a kind of intense, inward, insane love affair. The kind where the couple become completely inscrutable to those outside of it.

And while musically it’s pretty uninteresting, I kind of like the dreamy, wandering half-solo that trails off into the end of the tune. Argos’ vocal style can be a bit camp, but for some reason here it comes off as endearingly genuine.

Basically this is all a long way of saying I want more love songs about absolutely god damn lunatics finding each other.

I have a pretty narrow range of music that I can listen to at work. This isn’t for reasons of public consumption or avoiding offense (I have a desk job and decent over-the-ear headphones). Rather, I’ve found that if I listen to anything too slow I lose focus. Anything too lyrically complex and I get actively distracted. I’ve settled into building playlists full of loud noise rock, post-rock, post-punk, etc..

This new Snapped Ankles track is so good that a couple of times I’ve just put it on repeat. Not only does the track rip, its anti-Capitalist messaging takes a little of the sting off of having to be stuck in high-density seating doing [REDACTED] for eight-plus hours a day.

Weirdly, it reminds me a little bit of some of early records by the Fall. The sense of menace in “Pay the Rent” is reminiscent of something off Grotesque (After the Gramme). (Though now that I think of it, it could also be, in part because of the similarly-named track “Pay Your Rates”. Though maybe a closer musical analogy would be “The English Scheme”.)

It should surprise no one who has been paying attention that I have a soft spot for crunchy guitars and psychedelia in my rock music. This Mystery Lights track instantly grabbed me. Its simple in structure and execution, but it derives a lot of power from those noisy, fuzzy elements. It’s also evocative of an archetype that I (and I suspect many folks who have spent any time around artists or musicians) knows well: the well-meaning but haunted psychonaut. The kind of person who blows through a scene in a whirlwind of drugs and short, intense relationships before suddenly disappearing. When you hear about them years later it turns out they’re working on an organic farm in rural Turkmenistan.

Musically, it demonstrates just how far you can get with some fuzz pedals, some yowling, and the aggressive use of the whammy bar. Its use of layered textures makes it feel intense without being overly busy. The plodding, wandering guitars punctuated with undeveloped interjections sets a sinister mood that culminates with a weirdly perfect accelerando into the end of the track. (I’m of the opinion that end-track speed ups are absolutely pervert shit, which I mean in the most complimentary way.) I love that the track feels somehow both laid back and menacing. It’s really an achievement of the principle that simple doesn’t have to mean dull.