Year In ReView: Our favorite Boston-ish songs of 2017

CONTACT, “Gravekeeper”

Earlier this year the three gents of CONTACT jumped in the van and travelled with Vanyaland down to Austin for South-By-Southwest. Along the way, we collectively saw the grim ghostland of landlocked America — once bustling towns littered with empty storefronts, abandoned gas stations, and Main Streets paved towards the lost promise of prosperity as somewhere quickly turns to nowhere. On the ride we heard the evolution of the trio’s summer single “Gravekeeper,” though the subject is more about a faded romance than an American town that lost its way, its sentiment of what can and cannot be moved on from bares a striking similarity. “Gravekeeper” finds CONTACT veering more towards post-punk and guitar-rock supremacy, all while keeping their studious knack for illuminating synthetics. “It became this story about really putting yourself out there for someone, but having it totally backfire,” said guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Matt Rhoades. “She kept telling me over the course of our dating that she thought I was a liar. I played into that with ‘Gravekeeper’ by saying how much she meant to me throughout the song, then ending with [the lyric] ‘The only truth is that I’m lying in my blood.’”