Alchalant begins “Grad Song” with an insistent rhythm, and a flat, dirge-inspired
vocal – something that stirs up a dark portent in what might have been a sweetly
reminiscent lyric: “I miss the days I was young, playing outside in the sun,”
singer and band leader Alex Matijow intones. “I didn’t have a worry in the world,
because I didn’t know what it was.”
Matijow, who originally launched this Detroit-based punk-metal/alternative group
as a one-man project, wrote “Grad Song” in 2001 – as he faced the end of high
school. A decade later, the song’s nascent worries have taken on new meanings,
new shadings of emotion, and so has Matijow’s take on it.
Now touring and recording with Todd Errion on bass and vocals and Chris
Hobbs on drums, Alchalant is gaining wider notice – having been named best
alternative band at the recently held first annual Indie Music Channel Awards.
In all, Alchalant had been nominated for seven awards, including album of the
year for their self-titled debut release. But, before all of that, before the awards
and the recognition, there was this song – and its words clearly still resonate with
Matijow.
By the time the fleet riff finally arrives, almost a minute in, there is a billowing
sense of dread. Then Alchalant explodes into a squalling, punky rhythm –
with bashing drums and a bloody-knuckled, jagged guitar made complete with
this howling, resentful vocal: Everything the main character once feared, as
graduation loomed, has come true: “10 years later, on the phone, I’m successful
but alone … writing songs about the days when I was young, playing outside in
the sun.”
As Matijow sings, with an increasing sense of abandonment and hurt (“I didn’t
know what it was,” he repeats), there are layer upon layer of added emotions,
until “Grad Song” is finally subsumed by wave after wave of electronic noise –
and just like those golden days of youth, it’s gone.
Review by Nick DeRiso
Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
