Falling further and further down the alternative rabbit hole, Mike Bee and the Dead Soldiers’ track Black Sun is one of minimal familiarity, yet maximum impact.
As can only be of expected of their sound; it’s foolish to expect at all – their art is unpredictable. The drive of that opening guitar slide, heavily distorted and atmospheric, backed up only by the haunting vocal chorus of the Black Sun hook. The music soon evolves into an even bigger expression of freedom and creativity entwined. The whole concept of song structure is questioned and overruled with this piece. It is, for the most part, a manic and hypnotic instrumental track, with the mere flicker of vocal presence to add a certain lyrical power to the concept behind the music. There’s no standard use of verse – chorus – verse – chorus; there is no real sense of back and forth at all. The hook repeats, and the sound remains relevant to itself throughout, but the music seems to simply build, and build, until it finally slides out and away from you.
The verses, as it were, use that same hook melody to pour their words over the audience, so you get lost in the culmination of sounds and experimentation. There’s an anthemic and almost tribal sound to the vocals, which at times makes it feel like you’re witnessing some cultural initiation from a far away land. One of the greatest effects of this music is that it seems to end very suddenly – perhaps that overruling of standard structure leaves us confused and unaware of our existence in relation to beginning, middle and end. Whatever it is, the music stops, and you’re left with a very noticeable and quite eerie silence. A wonderful effect, really, and clever – keep your audience feeling far more content with the music playing than without.
Check out our write-ups for Despise The Lie, Won’t Walk Away, Walkerswood, and Take It Back. Grab your copy of the EP over on CDBaby.
