Initial thoughts? Man, this is mad! But I don’t mean that in a derogatory way; far from it. I mean it in the same way that Kerouac meant it when he said that the only ones for him were “….the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…” After all, why be conformist, conservative, uniform, predictable…boring… when you can be out-there, avant-garde, unique, inventive, experimental…mad?
“Silence Sirens Storm” is everything on that second list and more, but it isn’t just mad for the sake of it. It is worth noting that Magua is a Ukrainian artist, and the song is about the inner turmoil of someone living through the brutality of war, something that has touched ever single person in that country in some way. And so, after an initial soundscape of strange, repetitive sonics, something that seems to be the link between art and noise, the cacophony subsides, pushed back by a calm and considered vocal and a spacious and steady beat, the epitome of control.
But even this more defined sound only lasts for a short time. Soon, the vocals are screaming into the void, the sonics are ramped up, and an intense salvo of gibbering rock music is seeking to conquer the space. And things roll ever onward through squalling intensity and fractured sonics before they are pulled through the vortex and fade out.
This is almost music as an art installation, a rendering into sound of the effect of war on the human brain. It is music that rises above mere entertainment and perhaps isn’t that informative. But it is music that makes you feel, think, and ask really big questions. When was the last time a song did all of that? Not for a long time, I’ll wager.
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