Algorithm & Blues opens with its title track, a kind of glorious rock song, with some guitar work that reminds me of the hard rock of my childhood, activating that part of my brain where that stuff still completely works. The lyrics, however, are certainly about the present: “Misinformed and confused/Optimized to amuse/A story made of dreams/A consciousness of memes.” I think there are entire groups of people that communicate solely in memes and acronyms. Humanity is splitting, and half of us have a case of the blues. And how much of our lives is dictated by algorithms? And who is creating them? Who is programming them? So many questions. But the song is also a lot of fun. “Monitored expression/Internalized repression/Illusion of free will/Swallowing the pill.” That’s followed by “Reality Show.” The music here is in the reggae realm, at least partially, and the lyrics deal with another piece of our current reality. “Reality Show/Is all that we know/Reality Show/Is all that we know.” When the so-called “reality show” fad began in earnest, I thought it would last four years on the outside. I was so wrong. This was before I realized just how stupid people had become. It’s probably time to revisit Shock Treatment, a movie that was seriously ahead of its time. It is interesting to me that there are still people who are unaware that there is in fact no such thing as reality programming. It’s all scripted, folks. You can think about this stuff, and about the observer effect, or just enjoy the delicious groove of this song.
Eric Winston certainly creates some good lyrics. Check out these lines from “The Party Is Over”: “History is changing/The emperor wears new clothes/In the time between the kingdoms/When the monsters are exposed.” That line “History is changing” is particularly good. Also, the monsters have been exposed, but that seems to have made no difference. They just seem to be accepted. And again, this is a good rock song, a fun one to dance to. The song itself begins to feel like a pretty damn good party. I fully expect to be dancing into oblivion. “The Party Is Over” is followed by “Rock-n-Roll Thoughtcrime,” a sort of Motihari Brigade theme song. We entered strange, ugly territory in 2016 (an argument can be made that we were already there long before then, but 2016 is when things became really screwed up), and for some reason we have not been able to raise ourselves from the mire, from the muck. And now our priorities are so far out of whack that many people can no longer recognize the problem. When drag shows are considered more of a threat than mass shootings, we are lost, just utterly lost. And so what is a crime in this altered reality that we find ourselves in? Certain creatures want to police our thoughts, proving once again that science fiction has always been closer to the truth. “The idea is half the battle/The thought that doesn’t occur/Danger averted/Threat is deterred.” Isn’t that it? A lot is contained in that line “The thought that doesn’t occur.” If the powers can keep the people from even considering an issue, they’ve won, haven’t they? People don’t have to pick a side when they don’t even have the initial thought, when they aren’t even exposed to the initial idea. Anyway, this song rocks and features some great stuff on guitar. By the way, this song’s lyrics contain the album’s title. I wonder which song was written first, this one or the title track.
Things then get bluesy with “Identity Theft.” This subject is interesting, because it seems that we are a party to our own identity theft, that we are complicit, as we offer so much of our identity to the internet for the taking. “Your profile and your avatar/Your social media repertoire/Nothing left to mystery/Your gender, race and pedigree.” And who are we really? There is the question of what is identity, what is actually being stolen. It’s no longer a philosophical question, but rather a practical one in this strange new world of social media. This song also offers a play on that famous line attributed to Andy Warhol, with Eric Winston singing, “Everybody gets their fifteen minutes of shame.” “Identity Theft” is followed by the album’s one cover, the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man.” And actually it is a bit jarring at first, for Motihari Brigade’s original work is truly original. So it seems strange to reach back to something as well known and popular as a Stones song, but Motihari Brigade covered a John Lennon song on the first album, and if you think of “Street Fighting Man” within the context of the rest of the tracks, its inclusion does make some sense. And it’s a good rendition, Motihari Brigade being fully committed to it. Plus, it is a damn good song, with a great energy. “I’ll shout and scream, I’ll kill the king, I’ll rail at all his servants.”
There is a psychedelic aspect to “Be Free” as it begins. This one brings the focus down to a more personal interaction between two people, or a hopeful interaction, anyway. “I’d like to pop a bottle of wine/And drink it down with you/Tell you all the things that are on my mind/Just to see what you would do, what you would do.” It becomes a rather catchy pop song. And it does still address the larger society in some lines, such as these: “It’s filled with people who follow each other/And make up each other’s minds.” A song about freedom and loneliness. Then “Minefields And Downfalls” has such a pleasant sound as it starts, and features some really good work on guitar. This one has a positive bent, as Eric Winston sings, “Glad to see that you’ve made it/Past the minefields and the downfalls of your youth.” And toward the end there is some really nice work on saxophone. That’s followed by “Disintegration Blues,” another great rock song addressing identity. “You’re gonna be someone else/If you don’t choose yourself.” The song acknowledges the difficulty in following your own path, and it’s probably even more difficult these days when we are all constantly aware of everyone else’s paths. Does introspection exist anymore?
“We Are The Germs” is an odd one, the vocals sounding like alien chipmunks, as they announce, “We are the germs/And we’re here to kill you.” Imagine if germs actually become conscious and began speaking to us. That would signify another shift in reality, certainly. But would they rock as much as this song? Doubtful. The track drifts into chaos and coughing at the end, which basically feels like our reality. That’s followed by “Too Big To Fail,” a verse of which uses the Monopoly game to describe the situation: “You passed Go, but didn’t get paid/They moved ahead, you got delayed/They ran the bank, you paid the rent/You missed a turn, they took a percent.” And suddenly we realize that the game has become our reality, which sounds about right. I mean, Monopoly is one of the meanest and most repetitive games. “Revolution Rock” also uses the idea of games: “The drone strike is real in the video game war/Spending down the funds, driving up the score/Who are we fighting and what is it for/Game over now, not playing anymore.” The album concludes with “Morningstar,” a sweeter song, that itself coming as a surprise. “You were the only one for me/I recognized you right away.”
CD Track List
- Algorithm & Blues
- Reality Show
- The Party Is Over
- Rock-n-Roll Thoughtcrime
- Identity Theft
- Street Fighting Man
- Be Free
- Minefields And Downfalls
- Disintegration Blues
- We Are The Germs
- Too Big To Fail
- Revolution Rock
- Morningstar
Algorithm & Blues was released on September 8, 2022 on Creative Destruction Records.
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