With an irrepressible cool straight out of the 90s grunge era, Jovi Skyler struts in jagged riffs, lo-fi vocals, and frenetic jaunts into frenzied choruses. A song that wears its heart plainly on its leather jacket sleeve it’s a brutally honest account of mental health crisis with a worryingly relatable and hooky anthemic refrain.
Evoking bands like The Pixies and Mudhoney there is a beautiful sense of discordance in the melody that furthers the lyrical crux of the song. It dances on the edge of a break before diving headfirst into the spiral of madness in the powerful and frantic chorus.
There is a beautiful DIY sound to the track, yet it has a flawless production that lifts it from just another garage rock band into something a little fuller and more profound. The stuttering knife edge of the jagged guitar riffs pierce through the soundscape to mingle with the crooning vocals to create this melancholy infused symphony.
The track is constantly evolving and veering away from what is expected creating a sense of unease in the listener that keeps them guessing. Over the course of its runtime it presents many more variants on the main riff than the simple structures we have become oversaturated with.
There is a raw honesty in the lyricism that is both simple and strangely complex. It dances in poetry but it isn’t pretentious with it, effortlessly mixing metaphor with concrete slab realism.
This is an exciting breath of new life that revitalizes an old sound with something electrically modern. It takes great inspiration from the angst and righteous fury of the 90s and with the lens of a societal shift towards talking more openly about our mental health channels it into something creative and hopefully therapeutic.
Words by Matt Miles
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