Unlocked: Download “Undertow” and get pulled into DRGN KING’s Baltimore Crush
Listening to DRGN KING’s Baltimore Crush is a bit like remembering what you might have written in your journal when you were seventeen. Well, not even a journal, because that would indicate you strived for consistency. Who had time to be consistent at seventeen? It’s like finding a “really important” piece of looseleaf on which you frantically mapped your ten-year-plan during a study hall, convinced that following this agenda, of course, was key to Making It Big.
Because in ten years, you were supposed to have it All Figured Out.
If you followed all these things and nothing happened, If you didn’t follow this list, If you didn’t make it by then, you weren’t doing it right.
But growing up and realizing happiness lies in finding something worthwhile, something you care about, is one of those things you don’t really believe until you realize your own happiness.
Baltimore Crush, the band’s sophomore LP released tomorrow on Bar/None Records,reaches into lead singer Dom Angelella’s high school self in Baltimore—unsure, excited, and somewhat afraid of becoming a loser. There’s an unknown force of nature ahead—The Future—and your only lifeline is yourself. This dual anticipation and reflection on the turbulence of youth is captured on “Undertow,” a single that works to frame the rest of Baltimore Crush. This track embodies thoughts that keep you awake at night, at 18, at 28, at 68: will you “succeed” without compromising yourself, without changing your style, without changing the things you already love?
This album is a response to 2013’s debut Paragraph Nights both lyrically and sonically . Where the band dedicated the heart of Paragraph Nights to self-discovery and finding ground in the Philly scene, Baltimore Crush finds the group shedding some of the slicker, more polished electronic influences for a grit-meets-surf sound. It touches base with Angelella’s younger self lyrically and rhythmically, blending influences of early Weezer and raw-core of Charm City Suicides.
This week we’ll be exploring Baltimore Crush as the next installment on our Unlocked series; today, enjoy a free download of “Undertow” before the album becomes available tomorrow. We’ll feature an album review tomorrow as well as other features throughout the week- check back as we Unlock the rest of Baltimore Crush.
Enjoy “Undertow.”
Related