Further inspiring hype and curiosity about their upcoming album, How To Survive A Funeral, Make Them Suffer have released “Drown With Me”. We took some time with the new single which released earlier this week.
Described by the Perth band as “a really fucked up love song”, “Drown With Me” seems menacing and mean from the start. Darkly beckoning for another to fixate upon them, stop-start instrumentation welcomes another soul inward with drawing waves of rhythm.
With a high piano melody appearing in the thick of persisting heaviness, it sits like light sea foam atop turbulent waves. The combination gave me the sense of being both alive and vulnerably consumed, coming across as risky and sweet. This sweetness becomes amplified at the soaring chorus, where tender reassurance is shared; that succumbing to the feeling is more than okay.
“Take my hand. Don’t be scared.”
“Drown With Me”‘s watery metaphors are brilliantly done of sound and word, practically placing the listener underwater in its fullness of sound. Waves tumble around them – just like the way that a relationship isn’t all smooth sailing. Maybe it’s just me, but the chorus seems custom-created to have Make Them Suffer shown playing their instruments underwater in a music video.
Momentarily gasping for air in the panic after the chorus, soon all the listener can ‘see’ is walls made of riffage. Sean Harmanis’ frantic vocals and stuttery rhythms add to this picture of panic. Having this ‘scene’ up against the shining chorus works so well, seeming to reveal the two sides or the light and shade of love. “Drown With Me” invites for surrender into all of this, and “Let your lungs become wings” is such a great way to capture it.
The final moments of the track ooze an ultimatum vibe, inspiring a full-body goosebump with a breakdown that hits like a ton of bricks. The stormy sea of a song throws the listener to the shore to catch their breath upon the sand.
Listen below via YouTube or your favourite streaming places, and pre-order How To Survive A Funeral here.
[Make Them Suffer photo credit: Sandra Steh]