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“You can only be light.”
Meredith’s pressured speech ignites, illuminating a cacophonous mushroom cloud of fuzz and feedback.
“This resistance is reaction to the world we’re raised inside.”
Noise erupts but never overwhelms. Shoppers’ chemistry is undeniable, non-synthetic synthesis with some squealing guitar to boot.
Some bands fit nicely into pre-existing genres. Those bands conform to the waves of external influence and can easily find gigs at a bar on any given Saturday night. Other bands simply do not conform. They can only be themselves. Shoppers is its own unique unit, it’s a special sonic compound composed of free radicals who choose to coexist.
The story told in the album “Silver Year” is that of another free radical. An enlightened young woman who’s searching, in vain, to find someone as radical as she is.
“All I wanted was some honest proof that people might be good and normal. How does that confuse you?”
I’m a cave man, clinging to the cave walls in the dark, searching for something true without even a lantern to light my way or a shadow to keep me company. When I hear track vi. on Silver Year, I drop my knuckles to the ground and drag them around as I pace and scream, ”I believe in love; I believe in truth; I believe in you.”
I stumbled my way through my interview with the band and this reading of Meredith’s lyrics. I ask the tough questions… only in so much as they are difficult for me to ask. My view may be limited by my base qualities and steeped in traditionally gendered stereotypes; but, I can’t help it.
“You can not take on that sadness. You must lift your arms and fight; lean into your fear and fall into your silver year.”
Why do we trade innocence for acceptance?
“[...] What’s the point of being young and dumb if you’re always too drunk to come? Let’s share the blame. [...] The body is beautiful. The body is alcoholic [...] I am ashamed. Oh! I’m so good at making friends. I can really clear the room.”
Some dream analysts say that silver represents purity and protection; this protection often takes the form of social justice, which implies a retroactive application of natural laws or “righting wrongs.” I think this applies to the story illustrated lyrically on Silver Year. The story of a girl struggling to figure out what it means to be pure and if it’s the loss of that purity or the desperate clinging to its ideal that leads to her suffering.
“Hit me harder; I’m already gone. It’s a bedroom riot now. [...] hold me down; fuck my mouth; but, it’s all still holy somehow [...] First, I closed my legs; then, I closed my mouth; then, I closed my heart; now, I’m shutting down. You’ll know when I’m ashamed.”
It’s not the story of a promiscuous girl who’s been fucked raw, though it might be the story of an enlightened being who perseverates on her own penetration. This is the story of sexual liberation.
This girl in the story has nothing to be ashamed of and seems to blame herself for other people’s failure to show empathy or the enlightenment that she assumes is universal. Trust me, sweetheart, you’re alone. She’s a character who’s much more invested in others than they are in her. Her search for the external affirmation of what she already knows is truly great about herself leads to vulnerable situations and then the self-hate at the realization that external affirmation is hollow and meaningless.
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