The Qwarks
Cake + Boingo & some Oysterhead = Influencer
It’s about time somebody wrote about the stupidity of Influencers - and what better way to do it than with music too sophisticated for the “influencers” to understand or appreciate. If you like Oingo Boingo, Cake and Oysterhead - this is a band for you, and this song will soon become a permanent part of your life.
The Qwarks are “a Psychedelic infused Garage Rock/ Protopunk trio from the English seaside.” Stylistically, that’s a perfect description, but, they should add “wonderfully sarcastic” to the front of that sentence.
Track starts all-in with the groove and the title. The lyrics immediately begin to poke fun at the target with a fun melody that’s delivered almost rap like. The chord progression is funky and chromatic in the verses, and then it settles into a broader - easier setting in the chorus, until you get to the passage that takes you back into the verse, or bridge (after the 2nd chorus). The polyrhythms in the bridge that come up with the repeating line of “don’t you bite the hand that feeds you” are absolutely wonderful, and the technical proficiency that needed to pull off the riffs on the horn and guitar can’t be understated. After that break, we’re back to a chorus and then a full-on mash-up of the verse and bridge for an outro. At the end, it sounds like they snuck in a bit of a Latin piano line - it’s organized chaos. There’s no way that most bands could pull this off. I would love to see them play this live.
I think I may have found my new favorite band. I just listed to Unique Value Proposition, Dog Ate My Homework, and Inefficient Bondage and laughed out loud at the lyrics. The production is just like Influencer - direct, dry and in your face. If you think it sounds like a mess, you don’t know theory and don’t get it. ;) I recognize that this may not be everyone’s cup of tea - but it’s bloody brilliant! There’s a huge market for smart rock like this - we wish them all the success in the world, we need more art like this! Nice work, fellas!