Mitchel Evan’s new song, “Cancel Out The Noise,” comes at the perfect time, as some of my friends are moving away to “California.” It’s a grungy pop song with a hooky melody and an equally hooky guitar. It has its share of angst, honesty poured out on the page and through the microphone. “I don’t wanna be mad but I can’t help the way I feel / But that’s a cop out, I’ve always got a choice / I can’t cancel out the noise in my head.”
The lyric video is of the lead singer drawing a drawing of himself, screaming with his hands to his ears (pictured above). It captures the feeling of frustration, amplified as art is wont to do, that comes with difficult thoughts played on repeat in our heads. And just like the process of creating a song develops one piece at a time, the drawing is colored in until completion at the end of the song. “Come on, take it all away / That’s where you come in / I’m lucky to have you / I don’t wanna feel the way I do.”
It’s a testament to the good parts of the best relationships, where we can share our woes with one another and find comfort in our friend or partner’s caring responses. “You’re the only one I know / That can tame the crazy thoughts in my head.” It seems like the singer is struggling in the song, however, not just with his thoughts but now with how he feels about his friend or partner being so distant. That has become the crazy loop playing in his head. Something I have certainly felt before to some degree, after having someone so close to me move away and become less available.
It’s a cathartic song, a song that captures a particular feeling associated with loss and grief, as well as the special place that some people hold in our heart, so it’s sure that to find a home in some deep feeling people’s playlists as a result. It sounds a bit like indie folk rockers, Houndmouth. It has a timeless feel to it, and captures in the song and in the video both, the good that art is to us, where we can express our true feelings in order to either exorcise them or to communicate them directly, but creatively to the ones we’re trying to reach. Here’s to hoping his person responds as well as I did to this song, and heals the divide. Or there’s always a time to make new friends, as life goes on.
Prism Reviews 