Music Review // Strange Plants "Hot Tonight"

 

"Hot Tonight" is a song that I think on the surface most of us who have gone through these recent heat waves can relate with.  Through the dance beat of a band such as Franz Ferdinand or The Police, Strange Plants bring out this energy that should make you want to get up and move as they tow that line between rock n roll and punk.  There is also this bit of dance in here, almost like a touch of disco, which can really make you want to move.

Strange Plants have a message within this song which is more than just trying to stay hydrated.  They have the lines: "And all we have to lose / We set it on fire", which goes along the lines of burning things down.   There are also the lines: "We either die on the vine / Or fall out of love" which are to suggest that this song is about a relationship that burned out.

The way that this song describes the heat and that it's "Hot Tonight" makes me feel like it's less of an idea of how a relationship can have passion and be thought of as "hot" and more like how when someone says the old cliche "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".  To be hot, in that sense, is to be something you don't want to get close to, so you move apart.

With a blistering guitar solo near the end and reminders of bands such as Kings of Leon and The Black Keys, Strange Plants do their best to pave their own way through the world of rock n roll both musically and lyrically.  One of my favorite lyrics in this song says: "Don't you know I tried".  This is just that reminder that sometimes we can try, we can both try, and it still just doesn't work out because it just wasn't meant to be.