When I sat down to review this song, I sat with fingers poised over my laptop’s keyboard ready to jot down my initial thoughts, but as it started I was completely unable to do anything but sit transfixed, so stunned as I was by the sheer brilliance, emotional impact and beauty of it. I expected something good, no great, after all you’d expect that from VENUS, but this, this is something else. It took, and this ain’t no word of a lie, five listens to the track before I could even attempt to start trying to review it.
I’m going to gush about this song, I can’t stop myself. I’m not even going to attempt to be ‘an objective music reviewer’. Sure I could bang on about how this track is going to be huge, about how it’s a step up from the last single I reviewed, and both of those are true, but that isn’t that important, what’s important about this song is how it makes you feel. And I say this because I think that’s what was important to the band when they wrote it.
This track builds, it builds through its 5 1/2 minutes, to something that burns, it burns its way into your head and into your soul. It starts quietly, there are haunting synths, and then a quiet vocal, and gradually there are drums and bass, the vocals get stronger, and then about halfway through its epic length the guitar comes crashing in. And yes, it does that quiet/loud alternative rock thing, but it does it with beauty, the beauty of guitar that is subtle and clever, and synth that is sublime.
And look, Grace’s vocals on this are just the…, they are…, sorry I just don’t have the words to describe them adequately. Her voice sears, it builds from a whisper to something you just don’t hear, you feel it somewhere deep inside you. That’s just horribly inadequate but it’s the best I can come up with.
And as I write this the effect of what is now the seventh or eighth time I’ve listened to it, is to actually bring tears to my eyes. It’s not that often that a song affects me this way, it’s the emotion, its just the way the music, the vocals and the words work together. And yes, I have a personal connection to what the song is about, it relates to something that is affecting me badly at the moment, but I defy anyone not to be emotional when you hear this song. But it isn’t just this, this is another layer on top of the way something this good makes me feel, music this good just makes me feel emotional.
I just can’t wait to hear the band play this live. I just know the power of it is going to sweep me off my feet, and into an emotional heap, completely unable to do anything but immerse myself in it.
An update: Having just returned from the single launch gig I can confirm that I was indeed swept into an emotional heap. This was purely a mental state – given that I was standing on the bench seat right by the bass speaker on the right hand side of the stage actually being physically in an emotional heap would have been very difficult. This song was an extraordinarily powerful thing live.
‘Freaky Friday’ is musically brilliant, lyrically emotional, its epic, it’s powerful and it’s beautiful. It’s scarily good, no scrub that, it’s fucking amazing. If you haven’t heard anything by VENUS yet, I urge you to listen to this.
The info
Lead singer GK, says ‘Freaky Friday is the most emotionally bearing and intimate song we’ve released. Not even just lyrically, but musically, we wanted each member of the band to have their own moment within the song and express their anguish. I wrote the lyrics in this to not only comfort myself, but to liberate others from toxic variants in their lives. Not necessarily romantic, but in friendship, families and in sociopolitical contexts, because toxicity comes in all forms and in different ways. Take solace in that pain is temporary and those who have treated you with disrespect without any remorse, will know and realise their behaviour at some point in their lives, They’re the ones who have to live with that, which for us is the ultimate form of closure.’
VENUS are:
Grace ‘GK’ Kelly (Lead Vocals)
Jess Ayres (Lead Guitar)
Hannah Barraclough (Bass)
Grace Stubbings (Synth)
Gabby Cooke (Drums)
