Semantics Take Us Track By Track Through Debut Album ‘Paint Me Blue’

Meanjin/Brisbane indie punks Semantics have just unveiled their debut album, Paint Me Blue. The album is out by using LA label SideOneDummy and Cooking Vinyl Australia, and is made up of the singles, ‘Get in the Car’ and ‘This Love Could Kill You’.

Semantics, led by vocalist Callum Robinson, recorded Paint Me Blue in a goal-built studio of their very own earning. Producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, Joyce Manor) was on deck to generate an album that warrants comparisons to bands like Title Struggle, Joyce Manor, Ceres and Luca Brasi.

Get your hands on the album right here. Down below, Robinson breaks down the ten-tune album track by observe.

Semantics – Paint Me Blue

1. Carousel

‘Carousel’ starts the album with a bang and households in on a good deal of the central themes to adhere to. The tale of ‘Carousel’ is from a time when my lover was living pretty much two hrs away from me and the relaxation of her close friends/her daily life. Themes of longing, loneliness, separation, and confusion are rife in the lyrics. Musically, it’s a jarring blend of discordant guitars and ballad hooks. The plan is to promptly leap between moments of chaos and moments of hope to mirror how we feel in unsure times.

2. Get In The Vehicle

This track follows straight from ‘Carousel’, navigating the similar circumstances of another person living remotely from the bulk of their life and dealing with loneliness. ‘Get In The Car’ changes the tone with a more hopeful stance, searching for techniques to decompress and do absent with daily stresses. The hook, “For your sake, our sake, for fuck’s sake – just get in the car or truck,” is a phone to arms, attempting to squish the loneliness and encourage the protagonist to locate shops and actions that combat that sensation.

3. This Enjoy Could Eliminate You

We sadly have numerous friends who have been victims of domestic violence and abuse. The point of view in this tune switches between the victim and the friend as we investigate abuse. The goal is to drop light-weight on red flags we wished we had observed as friends of these victims and ideally provide interest to the disturbing frequency of these relationships.

The subject matter make any difference is sensitive, and it is truly hard to hook up artistically as an outsider to these events, but as most folks fall in the outsider ratio, it is critical to us to provide these symptoms to the forefront and question the issue, “Are we paying out awareness?”

4. Lighter Glow

The opening lyric of ‘Lighter Glow’ is the album title, and to us, flawlessly encapsulates the temper of the album. “Paint me blue” signifies to brush anyone with a simple stroke, sadness. The context of it changes which means with each tune, regardless of whether the narrator of the song is painting on their own with a blue stroke, or whether or not someone else is. The lyrics of ‘Lighter Glow’ enter a euphoric and mildly masochistic state of a significant. “Racing ’round the velodrome” is merely a metaphor for nausea. It is a great deal of phrase-portray to describe the sensation with trippy tunes to match the ambiance.

5. Didn’t Wanna Hurt You

‘Didn’t Wanna Damage You’ is our get on mid-2000s emo rock, with maj7 chords, syncopated snare beats, and gang vocals. It’s a large-vitality unhappy track about a break up, where the narrator has remaining a romantic relationship out of exhaustion. There are some very literal lyrics to provide dwelling the visceral character of a break up.

I have normally related with the emo tracks that explain times you have not been in your self, but completely fully grasp. The Menzingers wrote, “Your silhouette in significant-leading sneakers and hardcore from notebook speakers,” in ‘After The Party’, and it so brilliantly captures a delicate and personal minute.

So, in ‘Didn’t Wanna Harm You’, I tapped into the moment when “I pack up all our points and break up up our CDs” simply because that was the tremendous uncooked instant for me.

6. Embrace Monotony

This is the oldest music on the album and is not as thematically poignant as other tracks. I wrote this in the early months of the 1st COVID-19 lockdown. It is a different more vibrant, word-painting angle on isolation and melancholy, utilizing references I experienced available in my instant vicinity.

One of the critical moments of the tune that is meaningful to us is, “The neighbour’s dogs are howling anguish on repeat / Question anybody you know / They connect with it separation anxiousness / The seem of loneliness, it echoes down the road / The vacant driveways reverberate so melancholy.”

7. Unfortunate Music

‘Sad Songs’ is deeply impressed by Anthony Eco-friendly of Circa Survive, who writes attractive music in swing on acoustic. I preferred to follow a easy chord sample and compose about staying left by another person who moves cities and carries on with their lifetime whilst you are in the same position you have been with them, just constantly reminded of instances you shared. It is a particularly challenging spot to be when you know the other individual has improved environments and does not have to experience all those each day reminders of your old, shared plan.

Output-clever, I tried using to capture the sensation by recording the song in a person consider with 1 mic. No bells or whistles, additional vulnerable than any other level in the album.

8. Final Time

Right after the original uncooked thoughts of ‘Didn’t Wanna Harm You’, ‘Last Time’ follows the exact tale a couple months down the line. “Giving up on anything I have been performing at for years” and “I just want to let go” are lyrics that go deeper in hoping to separate from your outdated lifetime soon after leaving a extensive-phrase relationship.

The repetition of the hook, “I just want to let go,” is nearly self-sabotaging, like the narrator is seeking to influence on their own that it’s what they truly want. This is reinforced by lyrics like, “crawling by means of the valley hoping I really don’t see you out / We’re however linked when I’m with you or without”.

9. Leafwing

Subsequent the craze of the Circa Endure impact, I tried out to get resourceful with the lyrics and consider like Anthony Environmentally friendly in metaphor. ‘Leafwing’ is a species of butterfly, and the lyrics abide by a story of entering a metaphorical cocoon, to hatch as one thing new, much better, and unencumbered by earlier trauma.

The songs follows likewise. The tranquil, melodic, small times of the music are in the cocoon period of the lyrics. The loud, intense moments are matched with lyrics of urgency, like “time will never wait”. The track improvements in the second verse to major vital, with lyrics like “The solar shone by way of my vacant room / The burning gentle experienced left me dazed”, symbolising the initial awakening from comatose.

The outro is cathartic and explosive, driving residence lyrics like “Chrysalis, reanimate, leafwing, your shell decays”. The music symbolises new beginnings and the hurdles necessary to earn them.

10. Still Alive

We desired to finish the album on a significant observe after all the doom and gloom and dark themes. ‘Still Alive’ begins like a PUP track mopey, self-deprecating and exhausted. But the initially major hook of the music quickly troubles this mood in a bewildered and chaotic moment of “fuck enjoy, I give up,” and then an “oh wait” minute of “I don’t want to give up?”.

With lyrics in the end of the tune chanting, “No subject how I sense inside / No subject what’s been on my thoughts / No subject what the cause why / I’m even now alive,” I’m reminding myself and the listener not to acquire also substantially for granted. This is bolstered with a voiceover of a suicidal affected person from a 1959 analyze conveying his sophisticated inner thoughts to a therapist in the intro and outro of the keep track of.

Get your palms on Semantics’ debut album, Paint Me Blue, here