If you want to know how you evoke warm, post-punk memories (in us older listeners, at least) without playing the all-too-easy nostalgia card. Or embrace the DIY ethic without needing to use that as an excuse for the music you make. Or deliver music that sounds as oddball and off-kilter, but brilliantly so, today as it would in any previous musical age, then give “I’m Vanishing From View” a spin.
This debut single from Birmingham’s Death of the Story is a mercurial and marvelous listen, a blend of metronomic, ticking beats and grumbling bass lines, guitars that are happy to sit back and add texture rather than grab the spotlight, and a resonant baritone vocal that recalls the gothic/new romantic interface of days gone by.
Genres? Well, whatever you like. It could be seen as a sort of weird, shonky dance music because of its relentless groove. Or a strange alternative take on indie music; god knows that scene needs an overhaul. Or perhaps you could just label it post-punk, which never meant anything specific anyway and has undoubtedly become an even vaguer concept over the last 40 years since the last echoes of punk proper faded out.
But whatever it is, it is different, adventurous, outside the norm, and boldly going somewhere that fad or fashion fears to tread. It is music that leads via its own wonky dance rather than follows. It’s also a great opening gambit and calling card for the band, making you wonder where they might go next. Wherever that may be, you are going to feel compelled to follow them there.
