Despite the characterizations made by the mainstream, depression is not a cartoon rain cloud hanging over one’s head. For those who can relate to the analog times, it’s as if your mental frequency can’t be tuned in and becomes lost in the static of the in between. On “Radio,” the latest single by alt-rockers, The Lowtones, the band desperately searches through the void for some semblance of clarity. Entrenched in a darkwave pattern of moody, post-punk style rock, this track embodies the lonesome shadow of solitude that accompanies the unquiet mind.
The overarching theme of “Radio” is a gathering gloom that becomes increasingly unshakable. To reflect this clinging sense of dread, The Lowtones employ a series of driving bass lines that amplify the raging, internal menace. Overall, it engages the angst riddled center of your mind by simulating the frantically hopeless feeling of endless drudgery.
In turn, the stark, lyrical imagery put forth on “Radio” ranges from garden variety despair to searching for an escape. Of course, there are “tears,” but it tries to find solace in the “radio,” in hopes of hearing anything but their own sad song. To “get lost in a sound you never heard before” means to break the monotonous, depressive loop that causes needless mental suffering. Altogether, “Radio” wants to change its cognitive tune, but has to filter through some melancholic interference to hear it.
Unfortunately, depression is fertile ground for creating moody subgenres of all kinds of music. On the bright side, it illuminates the inky mass that gathers around the mind and swallows up the person from the inside out. With “Radio,” The Lowtones not only express what it is to suffer from invisible wounds, but to hang on to a sliver of hope that healing is only a turn of the dial away.
Written by Travis Boyer
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