New songs for August 5th, 2024

 here they are:


"Empty Trainload of Sky" by Gillian Welch:  Sighing combos of banjo and guitar and bittersweet Southern female vocals can only mean one thing. Gillian Welch has come out with a new song! Her latest number, "Empty Trainload of Sky," is a lovely bluegrass-folk-rock song in G minor with a blues-y D7 to punctuate the first two verses midway through. I'm not exactly sure what "Empty Trainload of Sky" is supposed to mean, but chances are it's a metaphor for some difficult experience(s) in her life. As she states in the second verse, "Well, it hit me and it hurt me/Made my good humor desert me." Fitting to her Tennessee roots, Gillian's comparison of hardships to empty trains really evokes "traveling down a lonesome highway" imagery to me. 

"Paranoid" by by Hippo Campus:  Not to be confused with the (much) heavier Black Sabbath song of the same name, Hippo Campus' "Paranoid" is more impassioned electro-pop than it is punchy, relentless heavy metal. Mellowness isn't exactly what you'd expect when you hear the word "paranoid," but this kind of "paranoid" seems more about vulnerability than it is about being consumed by madness. Jake Luppen seems concerned here that "everyone is out to get (him)," and he discusses being let down in both his love life and in dealing with his own self. This isn't paranoia that drives others away from you, but the kind where you just wanna reach out and hug the person who's being driven by it and reassure them that things will be OK. Well...that is, except the two parts in the song where Jake wants to stop being so "g*d d*mn f**king paranoid." Whoa now!! Perhaps even that, though, isn't so much anger as it is desperation. 

"She's Leaving You" by MJ Lenderman:  MJ Lenderman seems like one of those people who's really intent on bringing the "indie" aspect back to indie rock. That is to say, the detachment and laissez-faire attitude indie rock had in the '90s, as opposed to the more earnest, folks-y sound it got later on. Lenderman delivers bad news to a friend of his about their romance in a very deadpan manner over a "slacker" guitar sound that wouldn't sound out of place in a song by a group like Pavement. The guitar's squealing solo juxtaposed with its lazier sound in the verses is also very Pavement-esque. Lyrically, the song reads almost like a brief, hastily written poem of sorts in some parts, like where Lenderman talks about blues music and Las Vegas for no particular reason, it seems, other than just to mention them. The song's message is really just its first two lines, the very first of which almost sounds like an interruption in the middle of a torrid affair gone wrong: "You can put your clothes back on, she's leaving you." Ummm...how did he know they were naked?! Well...maybe that's just a guess on his part and I shouldn't read too much into it.

"That's How I'm Feelin'" by Jack White:  Jack White's trademark style of blues-y garage rock is as present as ever on his latest effort, "That's How I'm Feelin'," but I can't help but think that The Pixies were a subtle influence on this song in a way they haven't been for other White Stripes songs. Even on songs like "Seven Nation Army" (which this song bears slight resemblance to), you at least got the sense that Jack was gonna come unhinged in the song later on, perhaps because of the throbbing bass line that happens throughout. On "That's How I'm Feelin'," however, it does start off calm before launching into a loud, raging chorus. The Pixies' minimalist lyrical style might have also influenced Jack here, as the title of this song is sung far more than other lyrics are in it, and it's also only two verses long. To borrow a quote from The Nightmare Before Christmas, "Something's up with Jack"! Of course, we're talking White here, not Skellington, but you still get the feeling something was wrong with him inside when he wrote this song. I mean he sounds pretty ticked off during the chorus, like he doesn't want the subject of his song to be around him at all anymore!

"Vertigo" by Beach Bunny:  This is the third song called "Vertigo" I've known about. One, of course, is the U2 song, and the other is a song by Alice Merton that was released a few years ago. This "Vertigo" stands apart from those two. Equal parts girl group, surf rock, punk-pop, and garage rock with an "I Want You to Want Me"-styled rhythm, "Vertigo" is an exciting song, and it's also the only song of the three I mentioned where the word "vertigo" isn't actually in the lyrics. Why is it called that, then?! My best guess is that it's based on the part where Lili Trifilio sings during the chorus that she "thought her jealousy would drop, but it never stops." The "drop" part might be indicative of a "vertigo" she is feeling, as well as just the general vibe of insecurity about herself she seems to be expressing in the song.