In the three songs that make up Radiant Clouds, The Dirty Skirts’ first release since 2011’s SAMA winning Lost in the Fall, the indie rockers create a world of languid anxiety, one that finds delirium in the face of impending doom.
It was during lockdown in 2021 that the seeds for this and a series of future EP releases were planted but the themes, the questions, are as immediate and visceral as they ever could be.
Said delirium is present from the opening lines of “Doomsday Clock” as vocalist Jeremy de Tolly, like a spaced-out evangelist of the apocalypse, hazily repeats “the doomsday clock/ the doomsday clock/ tick tock, tick tock.”
Contrasting the natural world with our own tech-heavy – dare I say unnatural – world, the rest of the song highlights, almost disbelievingly, the absurdity of finding brief release and relief through little LCD screens when robins serenade morning dew and starlings natter in eaves.
“Blue Jean Skies” taps into the same metaphorical language as the song before but this time uses it to tell a tale of fragile hearts and complex, confused minds to a soundtrack both melancholic and jubilant.
“Numb and Fronting” feels more grounded in composition but is no less affecting as de Tolly’s voice soars and stretches to the point of agony, bringing the curtain down on an EP that so exquisitely mirrors much of humanity’s mortal anxiety.
Feature pic supplied by artist
