Open Your Eyes And There Was Someone Else

Warpaint “Undertow”

Warpaint’s “Undertow” is like a granddaughter to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” both in sound and substance. In the music, you can hear Stevie and Lindsey filtered through years of indie and alt rock — languid chords and plaintive vocals picked apart and reconfigured with a stoned haze and a vague post-post twitchiness. Lyrically, it’s the same sort of song — someone at the end of a relationship, addressing this person they still love, but from a distance. It’s the thing you do when you’re having a serious discussion with someone inside your head, saying everything you need to say, running through ideas, practicing for the time you actually have to communicate these things to them directly. “Undertow” may be more direct, but that only makes it more sad to me. There’s not much hope in this song, it doesn’t sound like there’s much room for forgiveness and change. The bad patterns emerge, they don’t really go away — not any time soon, anyway.

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