Industrious and fuzz-laden in one moment, seamlessly cosmopolitan and dance-friendly in the next; “Life…is a Fraction VI. Realization” might be Elsewhere at the act’s most versatile, but it’s also one of the most compelling songs this unit has ever released.
When you’re working in the studio with virtually no aesthetical limitations to quell your desire to make provocative pop music, there’s no telling what might transpire, but when you factor in the kind of mind this band’s roster has as a collective, things get even more interesting – and perhaps even harder for us to assign a label to at the end of the day.
Emotions are coming at us from every angle in “Life…is a Fraction VI. Realization,” from the lead vocal and the lyrics it’s spelling out so effortlessly to the rhythm of the music itself and the strike of the synth’s melody in the backdrop, but for all of the overwhelming expressiveness mounted against the silence, it’s the balance of the two in this track that tends to have the biggest influence over the audience. Through the absence of inauthenticity, Elsewhere tells us the tale of an artist coming undone in the most beautiful of circumstances here and likely makes a few lifelong fans in the process.
The lead vocal doesn’t get the same kind of love it gets in a couple of the other featured songs in Life…is a Fraction, but this isn’t an example of inefficient mixing. I don’t think this voice needed to be any more prominent in the mix to give us just as much heart as anything else here does, and in giving it a more challenging role in the big picture of the song, I believe it shows off the significant amount of power this vocalist brings into the fold when he’s given the chance to do so.
The structure here isn’t quite as meticulous as what I heard on some of the other records out of this scene right now, but this doesn’t hurt any of the sentiments in the piece at all – it magnifies them if anything. It would be fun to hear the song acoustically just to highlight how organic its framework is, but for those who care about the detail in good music, we don’t need as much to recognize the greatness in “Life…is a Fraction VI. Realization.”
Indulgence is having a big part to play in the newest and most exciting music to debut in the 2020s so far, and when it’s being purposed in the way that Elsewhere has for this latest single, it’s hard for even conservative-minded critics to have an issue with the swell of this emerging movement. There’s nothing pressurized or tinny about the instrumentation or the actual guts of this release; it’s all sonic brawn and poetic bite, which is all any of us want out of a song, pop/rock or otherwise. This band has figured out the best way to keep their audience and the critics who judge them happy with this sound, but better than that, it’s clear in “Life…is a Fraction VI. Realization” that they’re playing this music for themselves more than anyone else.
