Music Review // Excuses Excuses "Paralysis"

 

The sound of Excuses Excuses feels so fresh because it's on that border between punk rock and heavier rock, which when you typically think of it comes out either with more pop or more distortion than what you'll hear in this song.   "Paralysis" just has that perfect combination of mayhem and melody, which makes me think of bands such as The Living End and Green Day.

"Paralysis" also those lyrics which can border on emo, including the lines: "They say that it gets better but they never tell you when" and "At times it feels like I was born to hurt".  This can make the sound feel a bit more like My Chemical Romance, and with those backing vocals singing along this is somewhere between MCR and The Misfits.   Whatever type of punk-adjacent genre you'd like to put this in, it still has strong sing alongs.

There are two very important points which are made in this song that need to be addressed.  The idea of the title of this song comes up in the lines: "So I take my pills to drown it out and act like someone else"  This is that idea of taking medicines to change who you are, maybe not in A Clockwork Orange way but pretty close.  Though results may vary, when I was on prozac it made me just feel numb to everything, no emotions at all, good or bad.

The second part of this song that needs to be addressed is within the lines: "Just because I'm frozen doesn't mean I'm broken"  When I think about that idea of just kind of drugging people to stabalize them, to get them to what is considered to be "normal", it's odd to me how quickly we can pass people off as defective rather than try and fit them into society in a way which can become normal for them.   Listen to this song to rock or listen to this song to rebel, but listen to this song.