LITM Rock Picks, featuring Seasonal Falls, Seven Shades of Nothing, trainboy, and more!

These LITM Rock Picks push the boundaries of rock music; featuring Seasonal Falls, Seven Shades of Nothing, trainboy, and more!

1. Seasonal Falls – The End

The End is a soft, acoustic track, exploring loss and the sadness and confusion that accompany someone drifting away from you. “One day, warm becomes cold, and bright becomes dark / Life’s no walk in the park… Might this really be the end for you and me and everything us?”, Seasonal Falls sing on the track, capturing the moments of hoping in vain that things won’t change. The End brings to life a universe of calm and quiet, but beneath it lies quiet turmoil, masked by the soothing nature of the musical choices. Seasonal Falls effortlessly take you into their world on this track – listen here!

2. Seven Shades Of Nothing – When The Lights Go Down

When The Lights Go Down is a weirdly comforting track; I say weirdly, because it lives in an apocalyptic, dystopian space, but still offers comfort amidst the wreckage. When The Lights Go Down is driven by its spunky guitars, steady drumming, and a layer of distortion that sits over the whole track, giving it a certain engaging depth. With lyrics like “The heavens would shine brighter than they ever have before / it could be so beautiful when the lights go down and darkness fills the world”, perfectly capturing that moment in between hopelessness and optimism, Seven Shades Of Nothing offers us a gritty, poetic track to reflect on.

3. trainboy – Stay Inside

From its opening shimmery chords, the tone of which is reminiscent of the intro to a ’90s sitcom, trainboy takes us through a guitar-driven fuzz on Stay Inside. trainboy’s vocal delivery sits in the centre of all the track’s other elements, allowing them to overlap over his voice, producing an effect that allows the song’s message to linger and settle rather than jump out at you. It’s a song that feels like the first rays of sunlight peeking into your room in the mornings: wistful and serene, yet carrying an odd melancholy. It’s all about learning to enjoy your own company more than anyone else’s, and this emotional arc gives the song an honesty that’ll keep you coming back to it.

4. Jared Bond – Love and Reason

Jared Bond’s Love and Reason is reflective, winsome, and hopeful. It opens with clean, rhythmic guitars that relax you immediately, like the feeling after finishing something that’s been bothering you for weeks. Lyrically, the song is existential and contemplative (“Picking up pieces that once felt so right / Am I becoming someone I would like / With love as the chugging engine, and reason laying the tracks / You don't need to go back”), and lives in a moment of enlightenment. Overall, the track is a fairly simple one; it doesn’t overthink or overcomplicate itself, and that’s what makes it so appealing and easy to connect with.

5. Ruination – Watch The World

Watch The World, from Ruination’s album Everything Eventually, is an adventure, a roller-coaster from the first second. With coarse vocal delivery, drums that keep rhythm with a chaotic neatness, never drawing attention to themselves, and gritty guitars that drive the track forward, Ruination has crafted a track that pushes the boundaries of ferocity and intensity in rock. Lyrically, Watch The World explores the feeling of being constantly watched and observed, and of hopelessness and despondency (I′ve lost all time for everyone / Those devils on my back now / How they′ll scream all too often). Despite its high intensity, Ruination has managed to strike a balance between heavy energy and comfortable listening that’s hard to achieve – listen here!

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