elvira by The Links is a song that, against all odds, has somehow managed to sound like half a dozen of your favorite bands at once while still being its own thing. It’s like someone cracked open the DNA of shoegaze, dreampop, and post-punk revival, rearranged it in a lab, and emerged with something that feels eerily familiar yet completely new. It’s the musical equivalent of walking into a bar that you swear you’ve been to before, even though you’ve never set foot in this part of town.
Now, if you hear “shoegaze” and immediately picture an impenetrable wall of reverb where the vocals sound like they were recorded through a sock, let me stop you right there. Because Elvira doesn’t just do the usual dreamy, washed-out thing. elvira actually has structure. It has urgency. It has clarity. The guitars aren’t drowning in fuzz to the point where you forget they exist; they’re razor-sharp and deliberate, slicing through the mix like a knife. The rhythm section isn’t just there to fill space; it’s actually moving the song forward, propelling you into the next moment before you even realize it. And then there’s Jack Morrison’s vocals. It’s clear, cutting, and just detached enough to make you question whether he’s emotionally invested or about to leave you on read forever. It’s like Paul Banks from Interpol but with a noticeable pulse.
And look, I could sit here and dissect influences all day. Sure, there’s a bit of Interpol’s brooding cool, some of Deftones’ hypnotic weight, and a touch of Radiohead’s “I am both fascinated and terrified by existence” energy, but none of that really captures what makes Elvira work.
At the end of the day, this isn’t just another band doing a half-baked imitation of early 2000s post-punk revival.The Links is a band understanding those influences, distilling what made them special, and then actually doing something interesting with it and the result is a song that feels both timeless and fresh, cinematic and deeply personal, the kind of thing you’d put on while staring dramatically out of a train window or wandering the city at night pretending you’re the protagonist in an A24 film.
So, should you listen to Elvira? Yes. Obviously. I don’t know why you’re still reading this instead of already pressing play.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
