Between technicolor synth and screeching guitar, downtalker paints a picture of trauma and addiction as if running through an anxious dream. The soon to release single, “All My Friends Are Dead”, is a new release from Boston-based band downtalker, following their LP released August of this year, Post Junkie Selfish Millennial Single Father Field Notes.
In the first and titular song off the single, “All My Friends Are Dead”, Darin Thompson barks out stories of childhood friends and visitation with his dad in a deep voice soaked in reverb. The quick strummed, funky guitar, and lazer beam synths juxtapose against the morbid lyrics. After the bridge, preceded by an emotional buildup with arpeggiated synth, all instruments cut out while Darin quickly whispers “All my friends are dead.” Quirky but honest and raw, “All My Friends” does a great job of sitting you with the feeling of drinking and dancing through a house fire.
Next up is “Watch Your Heart Break”, turning to a decidedly grittier sound, with those poppy hyper synths mostly 86ed, replaced by classic post-punk style phasers in the bridge. Keeping with the honest, almost stream of conscious lyrics, Darin espouses the beauty of love and self worth, with the warning “Just don’t fuck it up” following on repeat like an alarm. All of this crooned over overdriven guitar and rolling toms a la Viagra Boys.
A jumbled beautiful mess of funny, tragic, hopeful lyrics, backed up by dancing synths and chugging guitar, “All My Friends Are Dead” is a message to those in recovery, 10 years sober, or maybe even thinking about changing that other people have done it, and it’s not all D.A.R.E. commercial tragedy. In Darin’s words, “Music is part of my recovery and part of my healing now and I’m hoping that by being honest about my life, all my experiences will shine a light on this disease and also make others feel like they are not alone. We aren’t alone. We have each other. The song is called ‘All My Friends Are Dead’ but I’m hoping it will have the opposite effect and bring us together. Alone we can’t but together we can.”
