The mesh of distortion and fuzz that lies over this track by Beirut-based band Postcards creates a fitting aesthetic for its title: 'Home is so Sad'. It's the refrain that runs through the track, voiced by lead singer Julia Sabra like a mantra with descending notes — sadness far removed by time, but present and watchful. A simple melody plays with timeworn wheeze; keeping time are an insistent barrage of decayed drums, regular and metronomic but sometimes (and fittingly) accented to create arrhythmic chaos.
The sound is rooted in real life. The song was one of three the band wrote following the devastating 2020 Beirut explosion, and features poignant lyrics that juxtapose the everyday experiences of the city, of the eponynous "home", with the very un-everyday catastrophic event itself:
Soil splattered on the walls like drops of blood."
Completing a considered, slow-motion and dreamlike balance of soft and harsh — sunk in sadness but with the swell and crash of trauama — a guitar wheels like a portent of doom into the scene. Notes screech and clash, buzzing and grinding to and fro with shoegaze grit, while somewhere in the background a light, electronic cloud of sound floats by, like a thought bubble — an ever-present vehicle for visceral memories.
- π This haunting track is taken from Postcards upcoming third album, Before the End, which is scheduled for release later in 2021 on Berlin label t3 records. You can also stream and/or purchase 'Home is so Sad' if you like.
