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As a potential song topic, “sailing through life” isn’t terribly fertile ground. But anxiety? Complacency? Temptation? Artists have built entire careers around those bummers.
Milwaukee surf-garage outfit Cozy Danger found themselves tangling with tough issues as they put together Orange Feels — the color-cued title of their first full-length album that came together during guitarist/vocalist Chris Vertovec’s ups and downs with sobriety.
As the band explained in notes accompanying “Again,” the new single off the LP, life was “at times heated and dangerous (red), later finding peace and happiness (yellow), and all coming together in the end to make ‘Orange Feels.’”
The album doesn’t always deal with the topic head on. “Again” is a good example, having been penned by drummer/vocalist Jake Brandt as an outlet for feelings of fixation and finding satisfaction in what sounds like pretty empty places:
And I drink and I smoke
And I’m watching tv
And I buy all the things
That I really don’t need
And I eat and I sleep
And I’m crossing the line
And it all kinda sucks
But I really don’t mind
Those hopeless lyrics bounce off what is, overall, a pretty fun-sounding track. The vocals come through with a pop-punk enthusiastic sneer while percussion sets a nice pace that the band’s jangly guitars match without breaking a sweat. In short: It’s a downbeat message, wrapped in an upbeat package.
You can check out all of Cozy Danger’s music on their Bandcamp page and catch them playing all over the place in 2024, including a spot at Feed Your Head Fest at the Kettle Moraine Ranch on June 14.
