Brooklyn alternative rock band Gooseberry ask all the important question in new single “The Protagonist”.
Formed during the Autumn of 2019, alternative indie-rock quartet Gooseberry are the new kids on the block, but they’ve already got in with New York’s cool clique. The Brooklyn music scene can never catch a breath – there always seems to be a talented fresh band, still wet behind the ears ready to disrupt the indie community, and this time it’s Gooseberry shaking things up with their latest single “The Protagonist”.
What starts as a fairly modest and quietly contemplative musical musing winds up in total, brilliant chaos before the fourth minute. I’ll walk the reader through it; the journey begins with a gently plucked clean electric guitar, a prominent (yet polite) bass line, Asa Daniels’ wistful vocal, driven along by an unfussy drum beat. By the first chorus, Gooseberry’s blues influence is evident with the vocal melody taking us anywhere but the place we’d expect, and the guitars develop fuzzier, meaner growly tones. It must reflect the band’s choice of subject – general cognitive dissonance – and they take it one step further about two minutes and twenty seconds in. Time for a huge, scary wall of sound!
Everything’s a wonderful, noisy, colourful blur from this moment on. Massive riffs are layered on top of one another in this psychedelic instrumental, followed up by the final chorus and its fantastic hooks. Gooseberry explain that the song is “a little about how we are all the lead actors of our own movies, and a lot about smiling as you lose control.” Through the sardonic lyrics lies a home truth, addressing our inner protagonists as we ask ourselves how our own stories unfold. This four-piece have proved themselves to be clever, witty songwriters, and Turtle Tempo can’t wait to hear what they’ve got up their sleeves for the remainder of 2020.
Find Gooseberry on Instagram, Facebook and Spotify.
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