badsoma’s kicking and screaming did not, in any way, make me kick and scream in the chaos of my bedroom, and honestly, I never put so much thought into it.
The dichotomy of summer, as short-lived as this season is, is such a perfect way to embody the heart that is meant for loving and leaving, and as yet another series of mental frames were projected to set in a suburban area where mountains were tree outnumbered the human population, there exists a canonical event that is, without a doubt, supposed to happen, but this time, just with different bodies and its corresponding folly souls. However, these events, as repetitive as they may seem, only just occur to slap such hardcore truth with both cheeks on the faces that the lesson has never learned, and in fact, it will never be.
So how do Armin Fard, Starlit Eyes, Donny Segien, Braden Rose, Ana Léon, and Lindsey Hamilton create a narrative that sounded violent, but never was? Does kicking truly need the exertion of physical force to inflict wounds on someone’s skin? Does screaming truly need a megaphone of a voice to make sure everyone, and I mean, everyone can hear what you are all about to say?
Sometimes, people are not just the way that they seem. Most of the time, mystery answers things that need more than what these eyes meet. Forever, people are born with simplicity and grow up with such complexities that still continue to spread like wildfire. Take a look, for example, at the introverted woman who happens to scream cottage houses, forests, and fairies has ever shown to the world, for the first time, and the madness no one saw coming through their lenses. Another example to point out would be the entirety of this record.
The first track “when no one’s around” started already with the line, “No one’s around. No one can see.” In a four-walled room, one can easily deem it as their sense of comfort, to be able to show this line in the first part of the EP presented already that this happens in their own solitude. You know, there’s nothing so powerful than what aloneness can bring to a person. If someone is strong enough to handle crowdless places and unseen voices, the pain will remain your friend. Funnily enough, during the middle part of this song, they have doubled the voices to somehow create quite an ambiguous effect that there were other voices than the lead, and it strongly echoes the intention of blurting their emotions without using the body to do so.
This five-track journey was a bit of a discombobulated one, although not speaking it from a production standpoint, as their subtle choices on some of the lyrical lines have somehow spiced up their songs. For instance, the oblique yet phantom-sounding harmonies shown in “the stranger” to battle with its late-night sounds made them visionaries. Also, the call-and-response for the penultimate track “talk about me” displays both their tongues in despair and desolation, which is a good addition to the EP.
However, the reason why it comes off as a mess is because there is nothing that evokes such kicking and screaming from all of these songs, as promised by the record itself. “Everyone was born for the summer,” the closer “all i wanted to see” culminated this record with such a cumulative effect, as if the seed was about to grow into a plant, and definitely did make sense. The mind, after the exhaustion of the circumstances, can do so much, and more. It controls everything, even the motor neurons, which signal to move for whatever reasons one would think. Kicks do not need feet. Screams do not need teeth.
It might be true that badsoma’s kicking and screaming did not, in any way, make me kick and scream in the chaos of my bedroom, but to think about it, it is actually a genius move, and with more listens, should definitely become a summer hit. In this EP, badsoma has come by to pick up their instruments, play their songs, and let us learn that there is no need for bodies to exhaust over nothing. Let the brain do its job.
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About the Author
Jett interestingly seeks every supposed-to-be-life-changing almost: getting a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, submitting a finished compilation of epistles and poems to some book publications, and releasing passion projects to audio streaming platforms. However, his inkling of his pen and his reverberating of his music, being the ones that keep him sustained in somehows, never stop him from walking to a road yet to be taken.
