‘Take the L’ by Roadkeeper | Return with Shoegaze-fuelled Single
Exclusive track premiere of ‘Take the L’ by the elusive Texas-quartet Roadkeeper. Politically driven in its themes and with sonic psychedelic waves throughout, this shoegaze-fuelled track shows Roadkeeper doing what they do best.
Produced and mixed by the band’s vocalist John H and mastered by Max Lorenzen, the track was written about the ongoing immigrant and refugee crisis at the US/Mexico border.
‘Take the L’ was written during the Trump administration and recorded in the Biden administration but remains just as relevant today. ‘Take the L’ serves as an important reminder that the two major political parties in the US are just punting this issue back and forth to one another, so when is real change going to happen?
Roadkeeper explain the songwriting process for ‘Take the L’:
“The song started out as an acoustic voice memo, which is very rare for us. The demo version was heavily inspired by David Crosby’s newer albums, his cadence and the way he integrates lyrics and melodies. We also were jamming a lot of Joey Bada$$ at the time, and the way he and his producers would refocus the tracks between the instrumental and vocal depending on what was happening in the songs. We produced and mixed the track ourselves remotely in the shed behind John’s house in Austin, with some initial pieces recorded pre-pandemic at John’s old attic in east Texas.”
The band has released a stream of singles since 2018, debuting with the cathartic and anthemic ‘The Creeps’, which deals with the dynamics of abuse and emotional manipulation. Following were the psychedelic post-punk ‘Gushers’, the pastoral ‘Old Man’s War’, the precision psych-pop of ‘Narcissistic Peoples’ and the droning psych jam ‘Sundowners’, all of which tackled different facets of systemic violence such as police killings, climate change and the humanitarian issues at the US/Mexico border. The cinematic sixth single ‘Downs’ was a more personal contemplation of impostor syndrome and not finding one’s place within the cultural and sociopolitical zeitgeist. Their first release of 2021 ‘Enemy Mine’ was a politically charged psychedelic blend of noise rock and shoegaze.
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