Album Review: The Bad Signs Show Love Has “Black Magic Moments”
The Bad Signs’ Black Magic Moments is exactly like its title. It is a five track spell meant to make you swoon into love for both the trio and the virtue. Moreover, it is a brief but fascinating portrayal of love that asks, “If Love is Light then why can darkness enter it?”. Logically, light can enter darkness, but not vice versa. Yet, love, which is the greatest feeling you will ever fee,l can become so ugly and vile. Hence, Black Magic Moments is a quick, haunting, but gorgeous look into the sweet and sour nature of this emotion.
Like magic, love is good, but then can be taken captive, at least in image, by those that aim not to feel it, personally, or make sure you do not even have it. Every human being can feel like “Nine Lives”, where they are constantly resurrecting from bad relationships, and then question why they “Can’t Stop Falling In Love?”. For The Bad Signs, no matter how hard they try, love is inevitable. The irony is that for however much love kills you, to never have it, is truly death. To achieve this wise and somber conclusion, The Bad Signs aim straight for 1960’s blues-pop; when guitars were stringed instruments of hypnosis, drums were the final sonic, taps of a dying heart, and vocals were like the last yearning yelps of humanity. You just want to sway into tracks like “Blue Love” and “Love-Lock” as if they never ended; like three minutes were the equivalent of the eternal longing for a good, loving partner.
Lead -vocalist Samantha Harlow has a voice that emanates the hurt and hope you have for love. She smokes her vocals to embody the dampness love can douse on your spirit in “Hypno-Twist”, which has a gnashing guitar arrangement that feels like someone lit your ear on fire and you did not mind. Overall, The Bad Signs‘ Black Magic Moments is as beautiful and melancholic as a black and white picture of old lovers, which was the inspiration for the album. The Bad Signs’ guitarist and drummer/ brothers, Nat and Rob Rufus, claimed the album was inspired by a black and white photo of a couple on a motorcycle, and like that couple this album makes you ride with love without knowing where to. For More Information On The Bad Signs Click Here.
