I like a song that kicks in without any fuss and just gets on with the task at hand. That is the first reason to like “Straight Line,” the new single from Red Cabin, but you soon find many more.
Running on an indie-rock vibe but certainly doing things on its own terms, “Straight Line” reminds me of both the better end of new wave and the more underground pop sound of the eighties – think more Robin Hitchcock & the Egyptians or perhaps XTC that what people usually tell you the eighties sounded like. There is also something very English about the sound, and, as a man from Long Island, I’m not sure how Jonathan Foster the man behind Red Cabin, would feel about that. Oh well, no harm intended.
If I make the song sound dated or nostalgic, I just need to remind you, dear reader, that music is cyclical. I would rather see this as a portent of things to come rather than an echo of the past, the wheel of musical reinvention moving ever onwards, the past echoing out from a bright new future.
A portent of things like a return to groove, a renewed sonic sense of adventure, a shattering of the tried and tested indie template, a merging of pop with more deft musical concerns, an abandonment of current fads and fashions, and a return to music that is trying to do something different.
And when we usher in all that, Red Cabin will lead the charge.
