Music Review // Matias Roden "Great Escape"

 

Quite possibly named after one of my all-time favorite films, Matias Roden brings us a single called "Great Escape" which feels a lot like we're running from something but we can no longer run.   There comes a time in a movie or television show where something happens to a character, they become mortally wounded and the other characters will say something like "You can use your magic to fix this, right?" and the dying character says "I'm afraid not this time".   That's what this song feels like to me.

Regardless of what you might be running from or what might be chasing you (there is so much to choose from) we are all running from something whether we realize it or not.  Even just the simple fact that time is chasing us, trying to reach its end as the last sand of the hourglass drops.  Matias Roden embraces that idea of being able to outrun time but only for so long, because eventually it will catch you, as the song says: "But it's too late for another great escape".

During this music video Matias Roden is shown running around a hotel, trying to escape whatever it is that haunts him.  I used to work in a hotel and they're so big you could just get lost and do nothing for hours with no real explanation.  That hotel is a rotting building now and, unfortunately, time caught up to it.  I do enjoy though that this music video does seem to fit so well with the theme of the song.

What starts with ringing synths turns into claps and drum machines.   This takes off in the beginning with a bit of a fun pop feel.  But by the time the chorus kicks in, it becomes even more so pop and the synths even join it.   There's that Neon Trees / AJR way about this song that just makes it so likeable to where if you heard it on the radio for the first time you'd wonder what it was and try to track it down.   But there is also that idea of this song tracking you down, which is kind of the point of it.