We’re living in phantom times. Our days are viewed through a screen, experienced via deja vu, and enjoyed through the flickering emotions of what once felt real. None of us have been our usual selves over the past year or so, and the pandemic age has taken what used to be normal, daily life, full of highs and lows, and created this straight-line forward motion marked by time and celebrated mostly by what we’ve done in the past. Our Facebook Memories and barrage of anecdotal On This Day historical observations are today’s stale conversation; we’re living in a constant yesterday with no real sign of tomorrow.
So it make sense that a band like ACTORS have soundtracked this internal, personal chaos. The Vancouver project continues to churn out riveting black-lit post-punk, the type that allows your brain to connect it to all the music that got us to this moment, all the songs attached to memories of better days, all the love and loss and heartbreak that we’d simply do all over again if it allowed us to escape 2021’s mental echo chamber.
Propelling forward is ACTORS’ latest single, last week’s “Like Suicide,” which takes another warm spin around the carousel as we ride a life standing still. “In the light of night, a loveless maze,” sings ACTORS ringleader Jason Corbett. “Fear of consequence, passing through the gates. Feel it closing in, just like always, voices calling you, just like always.”
We’ve read in other fine digital outlets that this track might actually be about falling in love. But for us, it feels very much like an indoctrination of how we’re feeling right now, alone with everyone, looking out into a world we no longer recognize, waiting for a new sensation to shake us out of this mental rut. When the dam bursts and we do finally discover a lost tomorrow, ACTORS will be the beat that pushes us, finally, into something once again unknown. And our memories will be just that.
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