Medication: This Town

It's complete bullshit that I haven't seen Medication live yet. I hear that Medication is not just about the genius of the bedroom recorded full length This Town, but on the live side of the coin, yet another kind of genius. Heads or tails, I'm in love.

I will tell you that if you've been eaten alive by a broken heart like I have, this record is that morose howl of waking up to the fact that you're much better off to say fuck it and get on with your life. Intended or not, this theme is embedded in each and every groove of the beautifully clear orange Hozac release of the LP.

As I write this, the end of From My Window is fading out with a lonely cry of feedback that might as well be the whistle of a train passing through a snowy wheat field as the little boy in me watches it go by. And then there is the goose bump inducing Didn't Wanna Know that follows. Anyone that grew up on the H-Street skateboard videos in the late 80's would be reminded of those slow motion sections where it seemed like we were saying farewell to the best of times, even though we were absurdly missing the fact that we were still smack dab in the middle of them. Nothing lasts, and that overwhelming acknowledgment can make you feel like you've been buried alive if you think about it too much.

Farewell Letter drones along for almost seven minutes with cinematic sadness. Then you get the sense that when the credits start rolling there's no leaving the theater, because there's really nowhere to go. It's punctuated by clean down strokes and wailing vocals, and the odd percussion this song floats on feels like a solemn boat ride down the River Styx.

And it all comes to an abrupt end. The cold out of key crank of guitar that stops C'mon Girl wakes you right back up to everything around you. But all you want to do is start the record over again.

Grab a copy of This Town from Hozac. Or pick it up locally at Redscroll Records.

This Town tracklist:

1 Your Heart
2 Don't Die
3 TPM In Hard Times
4 I Wanna Know
5 From My Window
6 Didn't Wanna Know
7 Sacrifice
8 This Town
9 Farewell Letter
10 C'mon Girl