Music is such a fertile place for reflection and self-examination. And punk rock is the perfect vehicle for masking your vulnerabilities. When I was a kid I fell hard for groups that laced the visceral combination of volume and energy with words that echoed my own mixed-up, romantic, petulant teenage brain. So I adored Superchunk. They were a band that understood frustration, emotional turmoil, the need to escape. And they were nice boys, like me. They didn’t throw things out of the window – they just thought about it.
Ceylon Sailer, the non de plume of Chapel Hill-spawned songwriter KM Sigel, come from precisely the same neck of the woods as Superchunk, and clearly share a sizable chunk of their musical DNA. Which makes their new single, ‘Lines Seem Severed’, a delightful proposition from the get-go. Offering a beguiling take on what Sigel describes as Superchunk’s “spirited crunch” the track offers instant rewards: buzzy, tuneful guitars, propulsive rhythms, a bit of bite. And some truly super moments – notably a lovely post-chorus instrumental passage with a bar or two of canorous string stabs. Ultimately, however, its winning quality can best be understood by observing its endearing, Superchunky balance – for it is melodic and surefooted and at the same time reflective and vulnerable.
We change a lot on our passage through life; swept and buffeted by forces beyond our control – marked by age and experience. That’s what I think this lovely single is about.“You were born as someone else”, Sigal sings, “I was too, I can’t deny / I say nothing ever changes but that’s a lie”.
And we don’t change at the same pace, or in the same way. So if we want to hang on to one another, we have to bear witness to one another’s transformation – adjust, adapt, find a settlement, a path that suits us both. Or go our separate ways.
‘Lines Seem Severed’ provides a lovely evocation of this conundrum. It notes the tolls that a body withstands – the pockmarks and burns, the scars that form from inflicted wounds – sees how over time they accrete, transforming us, fraying and decaying the similarities we once cherished. “Skin will break and ashes form / In a blink of an eye”.
That’s life. A few knocks hit. The wind is salty, sometimes severe. We find ourselves changed while others change us around us. Sigel pictures birds high above with their elevated perspective, going to “places we can’t know, guarding secrets that could break our hearts and our foundations.” While on the ground we cling to one another. “I hold you firmly to the ground, hold you firmly to a sound, pray you’ll never need tomorrow.”
But we shed our skin. We are what happens to us.
Written by Jonathan Shipley
