The Bay Area is roughly 2,700 miles from us here in Boston, and yet, we are constantly drawn to the area’s post-punk and darkwave music scene. Bands like Veil Veil Vanish, Weekend, the World, and Soft Moon have dominated our gloomy playlists over the years, bringing a bit of San Francisco fog to our crisp New England chill. Next in line, apparently, is quartet In Letter Form, a post-punk band that will be saddled with the usual references (you know who they are) because anything dark with guitars must be traced back to a certain period of bands 35 years ago.
So we’ll skip all that and just relay their latest video, for “Edison’s Medicine”, a track that smolders under the surface with yearning guitars and a moody undercurrent that matches emotion with the best of the older Brits. The track is off In Letter Form’s May album, Fracture. Repair. Repeat., and as SF Weekly notes in its video premiere piece, centers around five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. “Edison’s Medicine” touches on “the shock of life, the shock of death,” says frontman Eric Miranda. “It’s about realization for the need of a change in perspective, in lifestyle. It’s about asking for forgiveness and making amends with the past and letting go.”
Sadly, for us, In Letter Form just played P.A.’s Lounge in Somerville just a few weeks ago. Hopefully they make it back to our parts of the country soon.
Possibly in autumn.