“Broken Arrows” – Francisco The Man
Plenty of artists brought the rock in 2012. We’ve already heard from Bob Mould and Corin Tucker. We will still hear from other artists who made sure that the spirit of rock was present. This track, though, takes a slightly different approach to rocking.
It begins as a fairly standard alt-rock piece. Jangly electric guitars. A decent-enough melody. Nice vocals, although the lyrics are difficult to pull out of the noise.
But then, about two-and-a-half minutes in, it evolves into something else: A psychedelic jam session that is utterly brilliant. The elastic bass line is a perfect counter to the looping, spacey guitar solo, holding it just tight enough so that it doesn’t escape orbit. And the gentle fade away at the end allows you a moment to breathe deeply and recover.
It’s not complex. It doesn’t try to change the world. But those last 3:30+ thoroughly entranced me.