Ahoy!
Why the pirate talk? Because the artist that I’m digging right now – I’ve just decided that I am making this a re-occurring thing for the third of every month – has got me feeling quite nautical. Am I good at dropping hints yet? Have you guessed who the artist is? It’s Los Angeles based five piece, AWOLNATION.
My road to digging AN has not been an easy one. And to be honest, it’s been very recently (read: within the past two hours or so) that I have officially made up my mind about the group. In 2011, there was one song that myself and other listeners of alternative rock radio were talking about “Sail”. The local rock station – The Zone 94.1 – played the shit out of “Sail” in 2011. I went through several stages with “Sail”, similar to what happens with many people listening to a catchy song that gets the shit played out of it on the radio. I listened to it at first and thought “well, this is…weird”, but I didn’t really think much of the song. I’d hear it a few more times and think “okay, here goes that weird, electronic, rap-rock song again.” After that, I’d be singing – almost uncontrollably – “blame it on my A.D.D., babaaaaaaay!” Random places. In the supermarket. In class. I had AWOL-DD, for sure. Next was the point where I absolutely hated the certified-platinum hit – “If I hear ‘Sail’, one mo’ time…I swear…”. It was the day that I saw that my loves, Middle Class Rut, were coming to my hometown with those “Sail” guys, that I realized I could never hate the song again. I was an MCRut girl in a sea of “Sail”ors. My band had already played, but I didn’t want to leave yet. When AWOL played, I found myself actually jamming. Not bobbing my head to the music or just listening, I was dancing my ass off. Not only that, but I belted out every single lyric of “Sail” as if it were my favorite song.
Now, after hearing a few songs from Megalithic Symphony, I had dubbed AN my “guilty pleasure”. “Yeah, I know AWOLNATION is weird, I mean, they’re like a weird guilty pleasure. I think it’s because I had seen them live.” Their upbeat and sometimes downright heartwarming songs such as “People”, “Jump on My Shoulders”, and the adorably claymated video for “Not Your Fault” made them a permanent fixture on my feel good playlist. The musical equivalent of hot cocoa, I listen to them when I want to dance and when I am in major need of a pick-me-up. I would never have listed AWOL as a band that I love, yet I found myself listening to them everyday.
The band’s latest release from Megalithic Symphony, “Kill Your Heroes”, is one that I heard for the first time today. I probably heard it at the concert, so I guess today was the first time that I have actually listened to the song. The lyric video Aaron Bruno and co. have released with the song shows the band’s astronaut-helmeted mascot going about his awesome, helmeted life while yellow lyrics trail along the bottom of the screen, the words “We love you more than you know” in all caps and a larger font. The song instantly made me feel…good. It’s one of those songs with catchy percussion that you can feel vibrating through your entire body and that combined with the lyrics and this delicious ass chamomile tea that I am drinking actually made me feel that maybe I am loved more than I know, and maybe I can fly. Or, maybe it’s because I’m menstrual and overly-emotional right now. But fuck it, I have to admit…I am digging AWOLNATION right now.
– “Never let your fear decide your fate.”
Kai xxx
Here’s the official lyric video of “Kill Your Heroes” from AWOLNATION’s Megalithic Symphony (Red Bull Records)
itstartedinoctober 
Leave a comment