In the music video for the sterling new single from Greg Hoy, “Cacophony,” cinematic references collide with the lashings of a truly one of a kind songwriter for what could be the most revealing work he’s released thus far, but make no mistake about it – I don’t think it represents his artistic peak by any means. “Cacophony” wasn’t designed to change the world of indie rock, but instead provide a witty commentary on what that world consists of in 2021, and for my money, Hoy couldn’t have done a better job at doing exactly what he set out to here.
Nuanced allusions to pop culture aside, both the visuals of the music video and the track itself feel like a journey through time, borrowing bits and pieces from the rock n’ roll spectrum to create something amalgamative and relevant to any listener regardless of their generation.
Though it’s obvious Greg Hoy likes to celebrate his roots, there’s nothing here that would suggest his primary interests lying outside of an originality-focused realm; after all, if he were interested in merely recycling the old school riffs he grew up on, I don’t think he would have put the detail into the compositional framework of this piece that he did.
Rock music has gotten really complicated in the past two decades, but when a guy like Greg Hoy is playing it in “Cacophony,” it starts to feel a little simpler and easy to digest. This isn’t the only time he’s delivered a swaggering performance just when fans needed to hear it, but I get the idea his releasing his latest single and music video right now was meant to affirm his place in an emerging chapter of rock n’ roll history. He’s not fading into obscurity for anything, and that’s very clear in this terrific new listen.
