From sunny and exciting Brighton, the town I talk about visiting but never do comes a three-piece who has peaked my aural appeal with their latest single Digital Depression. The band is MI-HI and within a space of four minutes and forty two seconds you, the listener will be taken through a soundscape that at times feels close around you, like a dark and narrow corridor, echoing ahead, uncomfortable, but it demands that you step forward with it – into it. You’ll be glad you do as it opens out into a great cavern, ricocheting the warm guitar tones and that deep, octave driven bass line that for me are all too rare, an unwitting nod towards the music of Vic Thrill for whom I am an enormous fan.
The track plays out like a smooth road, a smooth journey, every aspect is so complimentary, the vocals are a reassuring presence throughout. Whilst the growing, looming instrumentation, never veering too far from the central point rises up, like an omen, foreshadowing, curving corners into the unknown before BAM, a roadblock, an unexpected turn, a cacophony rises and is dealt with in seconds, back to the driving bass, the repeating glisten of the guitar, poking through like dew on a cobweb, there is beauty in all darkness and there’s ugliness in the light and the conjured visions of this track blur it all into one.
There’s a brief respite, a place where the track allows you to think and reflect on what it has given you whilst continuing to drive forward through a delicious little solo, not overpowering, saturated in 80s indie shimmering examples – before tossing you around like you’ve been dumped in the spin drier that belongs to The Temperance Movement.
Digital Depression is quite different to the band’s previous releases, with less focus on guitar crunch, guttural vocals and the traditional attributes of rock numbers. Instead the band have realised the tone and sound that they need to carry the subject matter of the track, which I interpret to be about the ease in which people present their perfect, glossy and digitised lives online, paying little or no attention to the disarray and dysfunction that actually surrounds them in reality. Something that, throughout the lockdown has been amplified and evoked all kinds of responses from the audience who are living their lives and seeing everything, not just that Instagram shot where everything is just dandy. At a time where our lives have been relied heavily on the online world as a form of expression and communication this track stands out to raise awareness to our own mental wellbeing.
Of course, that is just my take on it and if you want to work it out for yourself, which you should, I suggest you go and listen to it, which of course you should, because, and I say this pretty much in every article I would not be talking about the tune if I didn’t think that it was great.
The track is out to the public on the 1st July 2020 and is available from all good streaming services, you can follow the links below to find it!
Band links:
