It often seems as if we live in an age predicated on an undignified rush towards the next big thing. The next technology, the next fad, the next fashion choice, the next political thought, as if it constantly eradicating what has gone before and replacing it with the always-arriving future, is the only way to travel. Music is just as guilty, explaining the need for artists and the powers that be to constantly merge and meld, fuse and blend music into new, unexpected and most unnecessary forms. Why search for the new when there is plenty of mileage in the old? Why fix it if it ain’t broken?
And if the word progressive, which is constantly banded around, denotes this constant search for the next big thing, the quest for these new musical styles, surely retro-rock, perhaps even regressive rock, is a reminder that the genre that rock ‘n’ roll spawned probably found its perfect, final form, many moons ago. Narcissist, by Desu Taem, is a song that supports my argument perfectly.
There is a beautiful savagery to the music, a no-holds-barred edge, an attitude and swagger, and when you add the lyrical disdain generated by the subject matter, you find a song that we can all relate to but also one that is both fresh yet wonderfully familiar.
But more than that, it encapsulates the simple, singular point of rock ‘n’ roll music, using salvos of spiralling riffs, pounding bass lines and backbeats, and punchy lyrics to create something that is equal parts muscle and melody, power and poise, groove and grind. Hypnotic and relentless yet addictive and incendiary.
It might be a song built on weight and power, Strum and Drang, but it is smart enough not to fall for the showboating cliches and more-is-more bombast of the metal fringes. No, this is hard and heavy music straight from the shaded realms of garage rock, raw and abrasive, scuffed up and scuzzy, and all the better for it.
It is a song more than happy in its low-slung, biker-booted, riffy, fist-in-th-air, heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless-boogie, rock ‘n’ roll skin. And whilst you could level an argument that it may be, quite purposefully, reinventing the sonic wheel at least Desu Taem have been smart enough to add some tasteful white walls and burnt that rubber until the street is full of smoke, they have woken up the neighbours and then careened off down the road leaving a trail of toxic fumes, empty beer cans and rubber track marks on the tarmac as they head into the sunset. That’s the way to do it.