It’s A Lifeless Life

Japandroids “The House That Heaven Built”

I resisted Japandroids at first and lumped them in with a crop of rather uninspiring bands, but I snapped out of that this weekend. I was initially put off by Brian King’s thick, blocky distorted chords but I’ve come around to understanding the appeal: Everything with this band is overheated and super charged, and the blare is half the point. But not so much that it drowns everything out – King’s voice is loud and clear at the center of this, and he sings his words like they’re the most important thing in his world. The key line comes at the end of the chorus: “If they try to slow you down / tell ’em all they can go to hell.” The song is ecstatically defiant in general, but that moment signals both triumph and freedom. It’s the sound of a guy realizing that he has successfully demolished the boundaries that held him back mostly because he’s just stopped investing in ideas that held him back.

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