by Elizabeth Braaten (@elizabethbwords)
Singaporean indie rockers Subsonic Eye return with new album All Around You, out now via Topshelf Records. The project is the band’s fourth full-length release, serving as a follow-up to their 2021 effort Nature of Things. While that album delved into the negative environmental consequences of human greed, All Around You finds its roots in the exploration of how to find light in a world that can feel, at times, dark, senseless, and devoid of meaning. From the ashes emerges a hopeful record that encourages listeners to tune in to the beauty that is all around us - if we can only find the courage to look.
Subsonic Eye first formed in 2015, when lead vocalist Nur Wahidah and guitarist Daniel Castro Borces met at school. The pair bonded over their shared love of music, and while they initially started writing songs for fun, the pastime quickly turned into a full on passion. They would eventually go on to add Jared Lim (guitar), Lucas Tee (drums), and Sam Venditti (bass), but the DIY spirit of that initial encounter between Wahidah and Borces remains a driving force behind their music. “We also love that it really just feels like five friends hanging out and jamming some tunes,” the group told Bandwagon in 2021. “We have a very loose approach to things and no one is really the main ‘leader’ so everyone’s opinion equally matters. It’s a very collaborative effort.”
That egalitarian approach is a driving force behind All Around You. “Performative,” the explosive album-opener, vents the frustrations of a generation forced to bear witness to societal and ecological deterioration and the unwillingness of power establishments to do anything about it. Wahidah notes how “Fake activism, timid skeptics unable to connect mankind/scared of middlemen walk off guilt-free, leave it for the next century” creating a sense of hopelessness and nihilism in the general populace (“Hands outstretched, now I don’t even know if I’m working, dying, for who and what”). That gnawing feeling bleeds into full-blown anxiety on “Circle,” a track defined by its electric guitar riffs, frantic, repeated refrain (“They might be onto me”) and the catharsis of throwing one’s hands in the air in blunt concession (“It’s just a circle, stuck in this labyrinth”).
Sometimes it’s this acceptance of imperfection that sets us free. “Bug In Spring,” with its buoyant energy and cautious optimism (“It takes some guts to trust fall just like that/To lose control and be okay with how it feels”) demonstrates the process of finding peace in letting go. “J-O-B,” meanwhile, articulates the ever-present sense of meaningless many feel while adrift in the throes of late-stage capitalism (“I’m so sick of this, tired right now, tired later/I am losing sleep over careers, beep me later”) and encourages listeners to look to the world around them for that sense of joy and purpose that so many crave (“Sunny beaches make me alright/Indulging in the simplest pleasures we can’t deny”).
All Around You is a brave record - as much for its ability to give a voice to feelings of spiritual emptiness and dejection as for its willingness to turn its face towards the sun and find hope on the horizon despite it. “I think I am brought back to where I belong, alive, can’t wait to see what I have missed,” Wahidah croons on the gently optimistic “Tender.” “Could this be my very own rebirth?” We like to think so. Here’s to new beginnings.