Elvis Costello has always been proof that pop music doesn’t have to be about holding hands on beaches or staring wistfully out of rain-streaked windows. Sometimes, it can also be about calling out militarism, or gleefully spitting bile at Margaret Thatcher in three and a half minutes flat. His best political work wore its anger openly, not tucked behind layers of metaphor or “maybe it’s about love actually.” Tracks like Oliver’s Army and Tramp the Dirt Down taught us that righteous fury and catchy choruses can happily share the same bed, and frankly, music was better for it. You didn’t just hum along; you marched along, whether you wanted to or not.
Enter Patrick Costello. No relation, but certainly a fellow traveler when it comes to wielding a guitar like it’s both an instrument and a weapon. His latest track Baltimore City/Let the Brothers Breathe isn’t here to politely request your attention. It’s here to demand it, preferably while you’re already moving, because it has the audacity to combine furious political commentary with the kind of rock-driven dance energy that could make even the most jaded crowd start tapping their feet. It’s loud, it’s insistent, and it’s refreshingly unafraid of wearing its politics on its sleeve, even if that sleeve is sweat-soaked from hammering the drum kit.
The song itself is a swaggering cocktail: a guitar riff that refuses to sit quietly in the corner, an anthemic chorus big enough to rattle the walls, a blues-rock male lead vocal dripping with grit, and R&B-inspired backing vocals that lift the whole thing into something approaching gospel. It’s the sound of protest, but also the sound of catharsis; the messy, sweat-drenched kind that insists you dance while you rage. And it has to be that way, because the subject matter isn’t abstract. Patrick Costello doesn’t aim his criticism at vague injustice floating in the ether; he calls out police violence directly, invoking names like Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. Names that should still ring uncomfortably in the public consciousness but too often fade into headlines and hashtags.
This track refuses to let that happen. Every drum hit is a heartbeat that refuses to flatline, every chorus a reminder that silence is complicity. And while it’s absolutely a rock banger, you could throw it on at a party and people would move; it’s also a protest chant with swagger, a demand disguised as a groove. Patrick Costello proves on Baltimore City/Let the Brothers Breathe that anger doesn’t have to be dour or joyless. It can dance, it can shout, and most importantly, it can remind you that protest songs aren’t meant to just sound good. They’re meant to make sure you never forget why they exist.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
