Music Review: Mundane Continental

 

          Listening to Mundane Continental is like awaiting your best friend’s birthday celebration all day. At work, as you sit in your isolated cubical you catch yourself checking the clock more times then you ever have, just waiting in anticipation for the madness that the night is about to have. After convincing a quiet and pretty female coworker, whom you’ve never conversed with to clock out for you at five, you decide to duck out of work at 3:30 so that you can get a haircut. As you are getting your hair cut the barber accidentally cuts a bald spot in the back of your head. In an effort to cover up the spot, you wear a hat…something you haven’t done in years, to the party. As you get there you recognize the same pretty girl from work. After a few beers you work up enough nerve to approach her and have an actual conversation. She doesn’t recognize you with your hat on. Instinctively you take off the hat and you suddenly feel the chill of the autumn air on your bald spot. She looks hesitantly into your eyes as you slowly reach your right hand back and finger the spot in embarrassment. Almost without moving at all, she takes your hand into hers and reaches it to the back of her head. She moves your left hand through her beautiful black hair until you reach a similar smooth spot on the back of her head. You begin to circulate the two bald spots…your eyes are still fixed in a sort of primitive passion. Acting on instinct you advance for a kiss. Your lips meet when suddenly you feel a crashing blow to the temple from a fist. You have been punched to the ground. As you pick yourself up off the floor you can feel the blood running down your face and onto your chest. The girl pleads with the drunken ex to let you go.
But he won’t.

He has you in his dirty, drunken grips. She begs him, she pleads with him to just let you go; to let you lay there lifeless until you have the strength to pick yourself up again. But he knows that if he gives you the chance, if he allows you to have freewill, you will run away. This is the Height of Apathy, this is the absolute depths of desolation; this is mundane to the core. This is melancholy driven by excitation. You feel a tremor of life. But your senses have no apprehensions of escape.
He hits you…
Then again.
He hits you four times to the track of your heart. As he strikes you with all of his energy he begins to speak. You can barely extract his voice from the deathblow, but it is there, it is real, and it is telling the complete and total truth. Despite obtaining absolute comprehension of these words you are completely certain that what he is saying is central to his heart and manipulated exclusively by his soul; something you begin to feel intimate with.

You awaken.

You’ve forgotten about the past. She’s gone. He’s gone. You’re left alone. Unknowingly, you carry on blindly. You know something is missing. It is so sad that it makes you cry. But this amnesia is a gift; you’d never know why. At least for now, the worst parts are evaporated from your understanding.

As you walk back to your car the sun stings your eyes. In your back pocket is a birthday card you meant to give to your friend; ruined. You rip off a piece of the card. Soaked in your own blood, you use the paper to roll a small and discrete joint; but you have no light. For a moment the sun hides behind clouds permitting a mirror-like reflection from your car window. An unrecognizable figure peers at you in the glass. You are badly wounded. You ask yourself if lies are being reflected to your eyes. Surely, amongst the smears of the window, your eyes are getting the wrong reflection. But despite your hopes, your eyes work perfectly.

And it is true that seeing is believing. But beliefs don’t equal sight. You take refuge in this contradiction for a moment as you begin to recognize your reflection. Underneath the blood, you’re entire body is numb except for the small marble sized bald spot on the back of your head. Here you can still feel her finger, hypnotically caressing in concentric circles. But she’s not with you. She’s gone. But you can still feel her hand. You begin to wonder if feeling is believing. As you stand in front of your car you cannot help but question your philosophical existence in this reality.

You consider these existential terms as you drive forward without a destination.

 

 

 

You can listen to the music of Mundane Continental at http://www.myspace.com/mundanecontinental