“Dead Weight” by Pvris, Friday, August 18, 2023 (repost)
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Following the singles "Hallucinations" and "Death of Me" from the band's EP Hallucinations, Pvrisreleased the single "Dead Weight" from the third album Use Me. The band has talked extensively about their new sound, moving from a conventional female-fronted rock band to, well, how would you classify Pvris? Each song on Use Me could fit into the genre of Alternative, one of the loosest genre descriptions today. Whether it's the programed drums, the pop hooks, the noisy guitars, or the throbbing bass, Pvris is now a rock-inspired dark pop band, or duo as of now.
TAKING WINGS OFF A GODDESS. Of course music doesn't need to be neatly classified. I spend a lot of time thinking about what gets classified as Alternative, though, and it makes me think that my definition that I coined back in the early '00s was correct. At that time, I began to see rock bands that incorporating instruments and electronic programing that had not been in rock music before. There were groups like Linkin Park, Evanescence, and Incubus carrying the torch of a new sounds. Alternative music wasn't driven by a heavy guitar, but rather the guitar was added as embellishment. I viewed P.O.D.'s only Top 40 hit "Youth of the Nation" as an example of Alternative Rock. Rather than power chords driving the song, it's a hip-hop influenced beat with a guitar picking single notes which are held over the measure. Sure, this definition didn't explain the early '90s grunge acts (Nirvana) that are Alternative Rock classics or the punk-rock influenced bands the genre (Weezer or Green Day), but the diversity of these bands and how they expand the Alternative genre with other musical genres is another component to my definition. Put simply, Alternative is rock-based music that has, in some cases, evolved beyond the guitar.
DEAD WEIGHT HANGING OVER MY SHOULDER. "Dead Weight" is certainly one of the more straight-forward rock songs on Use Me. The song opens with a noisy guitar solo to which lead singer Lynn Gunn sings over. The song reminds me of the dreaded school assignment when the teacher says, "break up into groups," and doesn't monitor any of the students' division of labor. Some of the students end up taking on the entire project, while the "dead weight" students do nothing. Like the "Hallucinations," the video for "Dead Weight" was created by YHELLOW, a visual production company. In a typical Pvris fashion, the video for "Dead Weight" is trippy and even grotesque. It seems equal parts horror movie and redneck party song. The video depicts lead singer Lynn Gunn at the wheel of an old truck or possibly a hearse. Bassist Brian MacDonald sits, appearing wasted in the passenger seat and several women appear in the middle bench seat between Gunn and MacDonald, and these passengers seem quite inebriated. The video flashes to party sequences, dancing in a ghoulish ball, and eventually the guests, all members who were in the truck, begin snacking on Gunn's brain, illustrating the lyric "All give, no take," at its logical conclusion. What's the dead weight you have to get off of your shoulder?
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