Juggernauts

by Valetta

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about

Juggernauts in the words of Alex....

"I wrote these lyrics last summer during peak lockdown; living alone with minimal human contact, bumming around the flat most of the time, job hunting and working on music. Obviously with George Floyd and BLM I started doing much more reading around social/racial/political issues in general, which was good. The bad side of this was experiencing all of this while completely removed/detached, and falling into the common cycle of clickbait, outrage and powerlessness.

Getting more emotionally involved with these things than I would usually let myself got me thinking about the ‘information-action ratio’ (yep the one from the Arctic Monkeys song ‘Four Out Of Five’) and how the constant stream of addictive news and outrage acts not as a call to action but instead to create lethargy, apathy and self-righteousness. It is not a stretch to imagine this is the intended effect by figures of power within politics and the media. Every scandal or shameful act that is widely known but isn’t adequately punished makes the position of the perpetrator, whether individual or collective, more secure. Every awful event we hear about but do not act upon increases our sense of powerlessness and makes more apparent to both us and those in power the lack of agency we have over our lives.

Musically, the aim was to combine two distinct rhythms in a way that didn’t detract from the song’s simple melodies. The bass and drums play their own groove while the vocal latches to the slower rhythm guitar part. I wanted a repetitive, almost hypnotic, chorus melody to place the emphasis on the lyrics as the narrator gets angrier and more bitter. Like our first two singles, Juggernauts builds to a loud, atmospheric climax; taking the listener from one sonic place to another is something we’ve definitely focused on with all of these songs."

lyrics

Lyrics:

And if I refuse, choose me another star
It’s a cold endeavour
If you want the blues, move to America
For a soul as black as pitch at the witching hour

I’ve been on a satellite
Orbiting the drain all night

Now it’s a little too easy
To find another mode that needs feeding
The crimes that you committed to memory
You left because you thought they could defend me

Now all the middle names have been deleted
For the politics of knowing when you’re beaten
And they told you that your God was in there

Open up your brain, (and) feign a deluded heart
Watch the juggernauts gather
And let it fill with rain, the same as an empty jar
With a small incision where all the living drains

I prefer the carousel
(To) visits to a foreign hell

Now it’s a little too easy
To find another mode that needs feeding
The crimes that you committed to memory
You left because you thought they could defend me

Now all the middle names have been deleted
For the politics of knowing when you’re beaten
And they told you that your God was in the detail
Now they’re sending out your future in an email

Don’t worry I can put it in gently
Full of calorific malice and envy
I know no one’s ever gunna stick their necks out
Tell you nothing gets me going like a death count

Every one of us a vessel for the fury
But the boss will never go before a jury
If an addict can eradicate the memory
I’ll be sunk into the sofa for a century

So treat me like a brother like an equal
And you can pin me to the paper like a beetle
Got the marathoners giving up a mile in
A generation that’ll never hear the violin

Every outrage and petition makes you safer
Every tragedy a weapon in your favour
I’ve got a plan that will reveal your living purpose
If I could only drag my eyes away

credits

released October 1, 2021
Music by Valetta
Lyrics by Alex Orosa
Keyboards by James Davis
Produced by Jake Evans and Alex Orosa
Mixed by Jake Evans

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about

Valetta Manchester, UK

Valetta are the hastily assembled barricade standing between the listener and a
tsunami of unrestrained cerebral energy and beatlesque harmonies, relentlessly accelerated by the tectonic shifting of time signatures. The band frantically assemble these raw
ingredients into indelible psychedelic shanties that cascade towards the beleaguered fishing
village that is Manchester’s psychedelic rock scene ... more

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