Sometimes Track Of The Day is an easy choice and other days we get stumped as to what to share. Today we had our Track Of The Day easily chosen for us by the fact that Deadlights released a music video for “The Mad Scientist”, which is not only second track from their upcoming album Mesma, but also our favourite from the album.
We had a lot to say about “The Mad Scientist” in our Mesma review, so will let that do the talking:
“A grinding bass and sultry sound carries us into the second track: “The Mad Scientist”. The sound feels weighed down and held back and it’s reflected all over the place; by the weight of frustration toward a logic-less reigning power and by sliding (clean) vocals and the bass. We’re still in ‘wake up’ territory, with frustration building into anger as the song progresses, the unclean vocals doing what they can to get through to you.
“It’s a rusted cog and chain response,
Slowing down the truth.
I have busted free from there and now,
I beg you to follow suit.”
There’s heavy questioning of what has been sold as being right, and Deadlights share an intensity of passion for awareness that’s so obviously apparent. We need to listen and wake up, or be run over by the drumfire (at 1:28) that threatens to mow down the entire track. But the song sections keep the track held together and they swing from hectic aggression, to bass raunch city and back again like it’s nothing.
And just when you think you’re impressed with this track, they hit you with 2:19:
“There’s so much tension in the room,
It’s boiling up my blood.
The spirits start to loom,
I can hear my heart thud.”
It’s a heart-tearing moment of stillness and clarity that kills me every time I hear it, pulling the song into something more introspective, tender, and escapist. As the track rides out, there’s competing vocals/lyrics and it gives the impression of being caught between feeling and fighting. There is nothing that’s not impressive about this track and it deserves an obsessive amount of replays.”
The music video adds to the song, showing the guys of Deadlights bringing a whole lot of fire to playing “The Mad Scientist” as well as hypnotism in action, pulling toward the concept of Mesma.
The band’s share of the video on Facebook revealed just how far they went in their exploration of the concept:
“This song discusses how people can be brainwashed to follow belief systems. In order to capture this we hired Hypnotist Chris Phoenix to both play the role and potentially have us all ‘under’ during filming. This little science experiment of ours actually worked which is both enlightening and frightening. We were all lost to Chris. The mind is an incredible thing.”
Check out “The Mad Scientist” video below, and wait (impatiently) for when Mesma drops on 21st April. Not long now!
Pre-order here: https://artistfirst.com.au/collections/greyscale-records/artistdeadlights
