by Devon Chodzin (@bigugly)
It’s been a wild year for Buddie’s Dan Forrest. Recognizing it was time to follow his passions in graduate school meant moving across the continent; his education took him to Vancouver, BC, a city where Forrest wondered if he could reasonably reassemble a band. That inspired Buddie to record nearly twenty songs before Forrest’s 2021 move. The good news, though, is that Buddie is here to stay: Forrest found a group of like-minded Vancouverites with the kind of musical prowess capable of sustaining the rising rock band. The future is bright for Buddie.
Originally released on Crafted Sounds as part of Buddie’s latest EP, Transplant, “Take What’s Left” is midtempo, weighty, and anthemic. Forrest inhabits the vantage point of a utopianist who visualizes a world not governed by capital or enforcing extreme inequality. Perhaps, the utopianist hopes, by shining a light on the scope of oppression, those at the top might see the impossibility of continuing business-as-usual. The nakedness of economic exploitation in the present age should make it difficult to look away; Forrest will make it impossible, ensuring that the 1% know what violence is required to perpetuate the order as it stands. The pummeling guitars add a memorable weight, and the video produced by Connor Murray of Crafted Sounds imagines some alternative moments of beauty to contrast the ugliness of oppression.