“Launching a Satellite” is, like so much of Push Puppets musical output, an example of indie music (indie-rock, indie-pop, pop-rock…call it what you will) that sits outside of time…well, certainly beyond the reaches of fad and fashion, trend and passing zeitgeist.
It’s not that such music was never in fashion; instead, it always sat parallel to and apart from the ever-changing sonic winds of pop culture, remaining unbruised and unsullied. This style of music was always marked for longevity, never fading from view. If you never quite submit to current comfort zones and conformity of the times, you remain impervious to its ebbs and flows.
And if I have made it sound as if Push Puppets make music that is somehow elitist and inaccessible, as “Launching a Satellite” proves, nothing could be further from the truth. Here, we find a song woven from interlocking guitars that shimmer and chime as they thread around each other, backbeats and bass lines both spacious and effective, and vocals that are slightly hushed, wonderfully warm, and somewhat seductive.
As the song heads into orbit, a string quartet helps it reach terminal velocity, and it gracefully heads off toward its final destination with the perfect blend of propulsion and poise. Following on from “Similar” and “All Together on 3,” singles which also call the recently released fourth album, Tethered Together home, it is clear that main man Erich Specht (lead vocals, guitar), aided and abetted by Steve Frisbie (backup vocals, guitar), Kyle Magnusson (keyboards), John William Lauler (bass) and Greg Essig (drums) is an astute and sensetive writer of songs and Push Puppets is a band who are not only able to deliver the sonic goods, but do so consistently and creatively.
Forget genres; call this classic…or at least future classic; the only missing ingredient is the time needed for the music to find its way into every corner and crack of contemporary culture and work its magic, to pool and percolate into the collective consciousness of the discerning music fans. It won’t take long to do that, trust me.
Thethered Together
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