I have met very few people that do not like music or do not care about music and that is okay. I mean my life has a whole new purpose, meaning and drive at the expense of the music. This past week I used music to help me study for my exams and motivate me to stay up and absorb as much as I can and the album that helped me do that is “How to: Friend, Love, Freefall,” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
I know. Random band name but does kind of make you want to check out their sound. Which is a definite plus at least for me. This group is more of an alternative/indie band with a unique sound and lyrics. They are hands down one of my favorite bands and in control of how they want to be perceived (again, their name). There are not many bands out there that produce some raw pieces without the taint of what most people want to hear. And this has persisted throughout all three albums. Their latest album has 13 mesmerizing compositions that I cannot stop listening to and is very rare for me to fall in love with a whole album.
Their lyrics are both poetic and wild and unsuspectingly relatable or maybe even eye-opening. They happen to catch moments or situations and feelings and stick a grove along the vibrations of strings and vocal surrender. I mean look at the title of the album: “How to: Friend, Love, Freefall,” that is something that completely expresses the album and a title that seemed non-negotiable to change. The wild song names include “Moody Orange” and “Possum Queen.” There are lyrics that express the pain and possibility that love gives whether it is between one another or ourselves.
The song “Painkillers” talks about prescription painkillers that are associated with the numbing of pain and how a lot of people take advantage of that, even emotionally:
“Living just comes with a bit of heartache
Heartache comes with a bit of young faith
Faith stays young till your heart get broken
Hope grows up to become someday
I never hurt no one and no one will ever hurt me
I believe I believe I believe I believe
Faith plays dumb till the doubts all leave
I believe I believe I believe I believe
Manna won't fall till the people all speak
I believe I believe I believe I believe
Canaan ain’t far for the souls who barter their pain for sweet relief”
These are just some lines of one of their songs expressing how hopeless we all feel sometimes. This reveals how painkillers block us from fully feeling all of this. We all know there is only one way to get over something and that is by going through it.
My favorite song on this album is “Polite Company” with my favorite line the last one: “She’s the edge between the cadence of my name/ And on these walls another language we would never speak/ in polite company.” The grove you feel in the latter end of the song is entrancing and makes you fall in love with falling in love with music over and over again.
I did not exactly think all these things of course while I was studying, just between the breaks. They are something that you may not originally listen to, but they do have something that is worth feeling.
