Reach Out

Like a bolt from Zeus, Music Go Music have struck again with their new 12″ single, ‘Reach Out.’ This outing finds them exploring a darker side of pop music; the place where Deep Purple’s brute force meets the Carpenter’s tragic wistfulness, where Blondie’s power-hooks cross melodic swords with Meat Loaf’s drama-rock theatrics. They’ve expanded their palette considerably, yet the sound is unmistakably theirs, and the magic of it points the way to the light at the end of the tunnel. ’Reach Out’ is the monologue of a would-be savior, offering to lift us from the pit of despair. It treks from Logan’s Run ambience to proto-metal riffing to disco-gallop to TV detective funk and back again. ‘Goodbye Everybody’ bemoans the void of such a figure, the immaculate ballad of devastation that the Carpenters’ sense of propriety wouldn’t let them record. ‘Just Me’ employs a Wizzard-does-Spector big-beat that gives way to a monstrous ‘co-dependent no more’ chorus for an ERA-era woman left in the dust. These are compositions that, again, look backward, but are singular artistic statements in and of themselves. The tropes are lovingly exhumed, examined, and re-animated. Their gratuity is a calculated one, their pathos is genuine in spite of itself. The aesthetic foundation they build on is what permits these towers of song to be raised to such dizzying heights. Searing harmonized guitars and virtuosic organ figures underscore the message of Reach Out’s chorus; “There is a fire in me, I burn with empathy — Dear let compassion reign, call out my name and face the flame.” We quickly realize that, like so many glassy-eyed moths, we, too, cannot resist what would burn so bright.