Rock nostalgia’s back in a big (and very expensive) way if you’re a music child of the 90s, but not everything comes for your wallet faster than a cannonball as ScreamingMechanicalBrain can testify with their latest single, ‘Welcome to my TED Talk’.
Released on local label Vandalism Begins at Home Records, it’s a gloriously glacial epic full of grandeur, that plunges the Luton rockers into the deeper, darker waters of a decade dominated by Britpop.
Think Pearl Jam, Skunk Anansie, Soundgarden, Tool and Helmet. And all good things come to those who wait.
At 10 minutes, ‘Welcome to My TED Talk’ is less a song and more an audio novella, a tale from the brink and back. Inescapably seductive, it’s a complex, calculated but deliberate dance that sways from intimate to aural assault, while maintaining a golden thread of urgency, whichever way it weaves.
This mastery was premiered as the climax of SMB’s breathtaking hometown set at this year’s Summer Assembly all-day music festival, and came complete with the soon-to-be iconic sight of frontman Nik Scott, megaphone held aloft amidst a climactic wall of squall, sounding a siren both literally and lyrically.
The singer said: “Without wanting to be too triggering, this song came off the back of a, thankfully, aborted attempt on my own life. The verses tell the story of an escalating downward spiral and the realisation that everything I believed to be wrong with the world was my own responsibility.
“I was pulled back from the brink at the time, and it prompted me to reassess a number of things and some of that reassessment led to the formation of this band.”
That alone is worth rejoicing, but then to see SMB’s jaw-dropping live performance of ‘Welcome To My TED Talk’ is to truly experience their sprawling, soaring, spine-tingling masterpiece.
Scott said: “The reaction to the song when performed live has been eye opening. I often make the theme clear while introducing, and that can lead to people approaching to talk about their experiences, which is very welcome.
“Part of the purpose of putting the song out there is to remind others that it’s OK to talk about these things openly. Especially men, who are still bad at that conversation.”
It wasn’t for the want of 90s television adverts telling its children, “it’s good to talk”. But if you’re ready to break the glacial ice there’s a TED Talk you need to hear on the first night of the three-day Castlefest music festival in Luton on Friday, September 27. Sound the alarm!
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