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In a richly saturated backdrop of whirring synthesizers, sampled appliances and an earworm-y bass line, Fever Marlene channels the discomfort of being on the sidelines in their new single “Bystander.”
The track is another teaser for the first album in more than a decade from the eclectic indie-rock duo of songwriter/producer Scott Starr and drummer Kevin Dunphy. Known for their analog driven tonalities, the two have been stalwarts in the expansive Milwaukee music scene across decades and now bring an even more ambitious soundscape to the table.
“Bystander” employs elements from artists like Alt-J and prog/pop-rock icons Genesis, but the blueprint of this track follows instructions from Braniac, another analog-focused outfit. The four-piece from Ohio followed an experimental songwriting structure that focused on terraforming every minutia of a song. Fever Marlene’s synth-focused instrumental on “Bystander” is evocative of Braniac’s sound but more focused on a groove than complex melody.
The song centers on a tonally rich bass line accentuated with notable production that’s simple yet addictive. The sound of a ringing landline and rolling tape blanket the track with rich layers as the vocals guide listeners through the churning mist of a beat where no light thrives:
Distance you from my parade of fire
Hold me down with endless black bound wire
Don’t make a scene, soon you’re going to learn
Pull the trigger or let the devil take his turn
Every tangled brother, sister and spine
Sat on the streets while the man be divine
Never bothered as you watched them sleep
This cities for the sinners, the lost, the creeps
Listening to this song makes you feel like a sacrificial lamb on its way to the altar. The overbearance of tragedy takes the form of a mind-numbing pill that eases its way into your routine. For Starr, processing grief was the nexus of each ounce of negativity in his brain that he ultimately focused into a whole album.
“Aside from love, the emotions surrounding death feel like something we all pass through the same way,” remarked Starr. “The details change, but internally it’s identical, and there are no words that help you through it — just time. Even then, it doesn’t really leave.”
Grief is its own form of decadence, a type of existence that’s self-propelling into a swamp of misery. Within this despair, Starr captures the essence of mental darkness through a synth-induced wave:
Hands stay clean while the gutters fill
Prayers go up while sirens shrill
Mouths stay shut when numbers rise
Counting bodies by street lights
Say it’s fate when lines get crossed
Call for mercy while the boss gets paid
Point your finger, keep your distance
Wash it off in the name of resistance
Working out of a shed in the woods, Starr built the crisp analog tones from a 24-track tape recorder he augmented with extra gear. The samples feel lived-in, adding so much weight to the already enchanting groove. The vocals swim around this current into a poignant tidal wave that demoralizes as much as it enraptures the listener:
Morning comes but doesn’t stay
Just paints the wreckage a cleaner shade
Step around it, don’t slow your pace
Every sin’s a borrowed face
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody
‘Bystander’ doesn’t solve any of life’s problems or offer any deepening insight into the human condition. It’s a song about loss that pushes the listener to sit with the uncomfortable, stop the anxiety-induced attempt to make sense of everything wrong and simply listen.
You can do that using the player at the top of the page or catch “Bystander” live on 88Nine today (7:30 and 11:30 a.m.; 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.). The album it will ultimately call home, Still in My Blood, is slated for a mid-June release. You can keep up to date with everything the band has going by following them on Instagram.
Jonathan Joseph is a Milwaukee-based multimedia freelance journalist who specializes in art and culture writing (and all things Milwaukee), with work appearing on Radio Milwaukee and in Milwaukee Magazine. Contact him via email or find him on LinkedIn.