sound check: another movie by the avenues

If this song were a TikTok that showed up on my FYP it would be one of those overly specific, thoroughly relatable videos that leaves me both a little awed and disturbed by the power of the algorithm.

You know that scrunchy face people tend to make that looks like they've smelled something unpleasant, when they really appreciate something?

Yeah, I was making that face, not 15 seconds into this song.

Fashioning a unique and compelling opening thought to hook the reader/listener is a task that writers agonize over every. single. day.

Well, the first three lines of this song are a top notch example of a writer smashing it! And then the lyrics immediately jump into a metaphor and take a spin through the existential.

Does anyone have any idea where they’re heading
‘Cause I think I missed my exit
And the map says I’m somewhere in the North Sea

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate how much skill it takes to write lines that succinctly capture such complex and challenging feelings as realizing you’ve managed to find yourself somewhere in life that you didn’t really intend to, or maybe wasn’t where you thought you were supposed to end up.

Of being let down by the day-to-day realities of the life you’re leading.

Of feeling some degree of directionlessness.

And how overwhelming all of that can be.

The paradox of this song is that it can make someone like me feel as though it is specifically relatable, even though the lyrics and storytelling are actually kind of… vague.

I don’t mean to say this is a bad thing at all.

Rather, it reads as a testament to the talent and good judgement of the band in knowing what to say in words, what to say in music, and what to say by not actually saying it at all.

Nowhere is the deliberateness of the band’s choices more evident than in the run up and into the first couple of choruses. As the punchy, frantic pace of the music (literally) drums up the only feeling explicitly named in the song (tension), the lyrics take on a searching, stream-of-conscious quality, using more direct language, in contrast to the more structured, figurative language of of the verses.

Suddenly, the drums fall off, the guitar drops to a gentle strum and the vocal softens. In this “brief moment” of calm, we’re shown more than told how it feels to find refuge in certain people, vices, and simple escapism.

All in all, it’s a rollicking tune that, like a good friend, is enjoyable at surface level, but has the depth to connect emotionally, too.