Four years on from Kramies being christened Dreampop Troubadour, we still find him drifting through the more ambient end of the pop world, wandering a fine line between cinematic commerciality and finessed, and perhaps this time out, funereal, folk, as things seem to have taken a turn towards the dark, as the title of the new single, ‘We’re All Dead,’ perhaps indicates.
But we are still in a more pop realm, a twilight-shaded one perhaps, but there is more going on here that keeps it on the right side of the daylight world, just, than the gothic shadows it skirts, more serene than sinister, melodic and lyrically metaphysical, a slice of Nietzsche-esque pop-noir, perhaps.
If you put a different set of words to the tune, it would be a gorgeous thing, but given its dark lyrics – ones that feel metaphorical, but remain uncomfortable and nihilistic, a sort of what’s the point of anything take on life’s rich pageant- it remains brooding at best, bleak at worst. But then, given what a consummate and clever music maker Kramies is, is he deliberately showing us the worst so we react by thinking about the best life has to offer? We may never know.
And that’s not to say that you can’t find beauty in such places, and to that end, ‘We’re All Dead’ is a lovely lament, perhaps saying, if you dig hard enough between the lines, live for today…there is no tomorrow, don’t look for heroes…there is only you, why ambitiously drive when you can dream and drift? Perhaps it is a song that suggests you free yourself from the weight of expectation and just, I don’t know…be yourself?
Okay, not the most life-affirming song he’s written, or is it? And if it is, he’s buried it well, but no matter how you look at life, there’s no shortage of things to think about here.
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