Blending a modern alt-pop vibe with a slightly post-punk sonic spirit, “Overlord,” the latest single from Scottish-Portugese duo Forgotten Garden, is both timely and timeless, a song for the world today but also reminding us that some things never change.
“Overlord” is a song about the idea that, in some people’s eyes at least, money is power. As such it is, of course, as relevant to those popularist leaders prancing around the world stage who equate wealth with dominance as it is to more localised wannabes. People who feel that their wealth means they are exceptions, better than the rest of us, above the law… both in terms of real law, but also that moral and ethical behaviour is not their concern.
With a prominent yet deftly played bass line from honorary Gardener Mel D, who hails from Argentina, further broadening the global flavour of this collective, together they create something in the vein of The Cure, as they were in their dark pop phase, had they been starting today and influenced not by punk but by more chart-oriented sounds.
But the sonic place that this song lands in is sublime, sitting between the cultish and the commercial, the graceful and the gothic, the artful and the accessible, the sound, perhaps, of the underground going overground.
People may argue about where this song sits on the modern sonic map, but any discerning music fan will surely agree that the best place to find “Overlord” is in their own music collection.
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