by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Last month New York’s Common Sage released Might as Well Eat the Chicken, We Won't Be Here in the Morning, their first new release since their debut album in 2018. Comprised of three songs and three segues that tie them together, it’s a collection of emotional songs that are built on personal reflection and shifting moods. Written and recorded between 2019 and 2020 in various locations with various engineers, it would be safe to assume that the EP is scattershot and uneven, and yet there is a cohesion to the release, one that draws from the pinched nerve post-hardcore and warbly emo influences of bands like Modest Mouse and maybe a touch of The Dismemberment Plan.
The record’s opening track (or at least the first traditional “song” on the album) is “Wraparound Background”and the song is a much of a rollercoaster as the phonetics of it’s title suggest. The song opens with harmonic pointed riffs and a yearning vocal line that wears its heart on its sleeve, but punctuates with a drawn out melody. As the beat rips with fills and a tight punchy pulse, the band eventually spin away, veering off the rails while staying the course. Common Sage have built this one with a cavalcade of dynamics and if there’s something you don’t like about it, just wait thirty seconds or so and they’ll move to the next section. They pierce, they pummel, they settle the dust into a slow dripped bridge, and eventually they burst into a big finale of feedbacking fuzz and sludgy twang. The music video combines found footage with animation, the effect giving the feeling of inserting yourself into lives already lived.