You can tell that the world is changing; the signs are everywhere. I notice it in the amount of music I find myself reviewing that, in one way or another, fights back against the encroachment of increasingly authoritarian forces. Not only is it telling in the frequency of, for want of a better word, protest music, but also in the fact that such music, which once was largely confined to folk and alt-rock, is now found all across the musical landscape.
‘Army of the Insane,’ the new one from Energy Whores, is a sound forged where hard dance meets the surge of more rock-and-roll forces. The result is a blend of groove and grit, muscle and melody, a song that is perfect for the alternative clubland floor yet not a bad fit for the downtown rock club too, reminding me, in essence if not necessarily sound, of when all those disenfranchised punks took to rewiring newly available, cheap keyboards to blend with their battered Telecasters to create an array of sounds that came to define the 80s underground.
But more important than the music is the message: though it’s not overtly party political, it’s certainly a warning. It speaks to society’s growing disconnect and how forces more calculated and manipulative than we are use that disenfranchisement to play puppet masters to a divided, conquerable population by presenting us with a version of the world of their own making.
This is a stand against authoritarianism, against the punching down of the powers-that-be, against overreach, and corporate and political bullying. This is a stand against the dark forces who seek to break us and then control us. And it is all of that, put to the edgiest, genre-hopping, elegantly eclectic music you have heard in a long time.
Make a stand, it says, but also get down and boogie while you can.