CUTSCENE - 'Concrete Line'
On ‘Concrete Line’, Cutscene come with the kind of moody, poetic rock that has flourished in the UK and Ireland in recent years.
It’s a punchy, economic performance, one which doesn’t dwell too long in one place, or milks a good riff cynically. It’s an evolving piece that goes a long way to expressing the many and often conflicting feelings of daily life in a small town. The opening is shimmering and euphoric, an immediate and enjoyable mess of reverberation. The cymbals splash and the guitars are comfortingly discordant. As Seb Mason’s voice comes into view, Cutscene evoke the ambivalence that defines the sound of this era’s finest guitar bands.
The anxiety-laden vocals mixed with the heady swirl of the guitars chart an uneasy path, as Mason guides us through his thoughts on being caught in the languorous, static environs of small-town existence - ““This track presents a character who is on a single track, someone living in a small town. The idea was conceptualised after equating the feeling of being ‘stoned’ to the paralysis people feel in modern urban centres where nothing new or exciting really happens.” Cutscene were raised in the north east of england, a part of the country where big cosmopolitan cities give way to sleepier locales. He is speaking from experience.
Another energy that is more delicately expressed in ‘Concrete Line’ is that of being out place, maybe not lost, but transposed from a familiar habitat. Cutscene are now based in Manchester, one of the busiest metropolises in the UK - Perhaps then, there’s even a sense of longing to go back to the simpler ways they grew up with. Whatever feelings this first noisy minute gives you, there’s not much time to think before the mid-section drops - A moment of melodic clarity in between two blocks of loud guitar. Here the band strip right back, with Mason’s lyrics taking full prominence - “It’s something he tries to say, but there’s no day he can separate. And trusting that time will turn, but words he prays offer no escape.” The monotony, the days blurring into one. It’s difficult to think of life as anything but what’s immediately in front of you, especially with so few options for change.
The key to understanding ‘Concrete Line’ is treating it as three vignettes brought together as one, a song which ties its phases together with sometimes-tenuous but always-logical connections. The titular ‘Concrete Line’ is about being stuck in the same way of thinking, as your surroundings don’t offer any change or recompense from the day-to-day banality. It’s about being lucid, but not quite all there in the present. This theme is an disquieted one, it’s not necessarily unhappy, it just kind of exists, which is exactly the feel you get being raised in a small town. You can dream about the wider world and try to grasp it, but unless you haul yourself up with purpose, you’ll never get out there and see it for yourself. It takes hard work, self-belief and a little bit of good fortune to break the cycle. Some people never do.
Words by Adam Davidson
