Rising high into the ethers on the back of a rock-solid harmony that suddenly disappears at the first appearance of a peaceful acoustic guitar, to say that “The Elegant Charade” gets started on a high note would be too big an understatement for me to make. In the thirty seconds or so that preclude the introduction of any lyrics in the track, there’s more than enough substance in the music for listeners to get a pretty good idea about what they’re about to experience in the next five and a half minutes of this fabulously melodic dreamscape. The music is monolithic, but there’s nothing overwhelming in the slow-churning deluge of oversized sonic bliss pouring from our speakers. This was tailored for the pickiest of indie buffs, and in my book, it’s a homerun for sure.
Lyrically speaking, there are a lot of different ways that we could break down “The Elegant Charade,” but getting past the actual words that make-up the verses here, there’s a lot of emotionality to be enjoyed in the relationship between the vocal and the other components here. The harmony between the singer and his synthesized backdrop, as well as the sterling fretwork that occasionally darts through the air around us, is unbreakable from start to finish. As we close in on the end of the song, it becomes difficult to discern one from the other, as they join forces in what could be one of the more robust displays of sonic strength out on this side of the dial right now.
I really hope I have the chance to see Blue for Black perform this song on stage in the near future, mostly because I want to know how he’d broach it in such a capacity. It would probably depend greatly on the venue in which he’d be playing in, but regardless of its size, I think he could get a lot of additional mileage out of the ultra-versatile bones of this song if provided with enough room to really jam out. In the same way, he could strip away all of the polish from the surface of the track and restyle it as an acoustic number – the great thing about a single like “The Elegant Charade” is that it can be shaped a hundred different ways, much like its composer’s future can.
REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/blueforblack
“The Elegant Charade” comes to an end with one last lingering strand of a vocal harmony that hangs above us in the heavens like a guardian angel watching down in the night sky. To be brutally honest, I had no idea who Blue for Black was before I was encouraged at the behest of a close friend in the business to take a peek at his new single, and I certainly hear what all of the hype has been about in its 5:36 of play. This is a post-punk revival anthem with the heart and soul of a contemporary pop ballad, and it’s a cocktail that I think plenty of listeners will be requesting come this summer.
Garth Thomas