Simply Put, This Shit Rocks – The Low Cards “Suffer”

Know that feeling the second a song kicks in and your immediately reaction is “holy shit, this is going to take me for a ride”. The latest single “Suffer”, from Providence based The Low Cards is that kind of a song.

Songwriter and guitarist Dan Baker came my way via the usual channels a number of years back. Playing the same dives and swapping each others records when we once shared a bill. I was immediately hooked on his plaintive and candid writing style. Songs like ‘This Ain’t My Home’ completely shook up my ideals of what a good song should be. Prior to hearing Baker meaning drenched in metaphor and literary device and afterwards realizing that THESE were the kinds of songs I wanted to be writing. When he proclaims “well I live up in a room, two stories from the street / in a building make of bricks in the 1970s / its got carpet on the floor, 15 inches thick / its got popcorn on the ceiling, makes me kind of sick” I related so deeply to that plainspoken method of writing. I’ve lived in that shitty apartment, I think most of us have who got back from college and had no money and far more debt. Or those who weren’t able to attend college and were scraping by on what we could make during the day and playing for tips and beer at night. His words resonant more than I can properly explain.

I dance like a chicken and cry like a mule 
I’ll just get out and walk if I run out of fuel 
And it ain’t true honey what you think 
Even though I never make a stink 
I do suffer 
I do suffer 

Sonically, ‘Suffer’, has such a groove to it that keeps your head dipping back and forth and occasionally descends into madness when Baker riffs off on something. It can be a sort of controlled explosiveness that is exciting and tension creating. Its not quite straight blues or straight rock n’ roll, the rhythm steady and strong driving, but also unpredictable in a grunge, garage rock sort of way. The dynamic rhythm duo Matt Slobogan on drums and Brian Jablonski on bass just round out the sound wonderfully, adding just what it needs. Its just plain fucking awesome.

I cannot wait to hear what comes next from this band and watch them as they further cement themselves as one of Providence’s finest.