Gone From My Sight, a band named after the book given to hospice patients, may not exactly sound like the sort of music people would want to hear in the middle of a pandemic. Yet their aptly-titled album Twenty Twenty perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our times; combining fear with tempered hope, grief with apocalyptic camaraderie. Gone From My Sight is a duo consisting of professional musicians Quinn Raymond and Keith Watts, and their sound is influenced by the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails; making for a collection of songs with an undeniable darkness that is nevertheless irresistibly danceable.
The album begins innocuously enough with the disco-tinged “Chrome Dynasty” and its soulful running bassline, but like Dante’s Inferno the songs gradually descend down into the abyss. Although the lyrics are reduced to the personal, each track really paints an image of the personality of society at large, from egocentric culture on “Selfish” to an aimless sense of drifting on “The Float” that characterizes so much of existence today. It may very well be dancing to the sound of the end of the world, but there is a strange beauty to this group’s message, epitomized by their song “Damon” and the declaration, “We’re laughing while we’re crying.”
