“The Future” by Love Crushed Velvet

Rock hasn’t had the triumphant beats that made it big for a long time now, or at least that’s how it seems when looking at the mainstream half of the genre’s output in 2022.

There’s just no bombast, no indulgence like there used to be in rock n’ roll, but this isn’t stopping a band called Love Crushed Velvet from getting into something old school with the release of their new single “The Future.” Rather than simply recreating elements of a past sound in this track, Love Crushed Velvet is using the classic template as a launch pad from which they can create something fresh, aggressive, and just a bit more cerebral than the status quo allows for.

The psychedelic influence over the music video for “The Future” is quite evident even to the casual viewer, but this can also be said for the source material. There’s something rather dreamy about the visual concept, but it’s so perfectly lined up with the rhythm of the music that it isn’t difficult to see where Love Crushed Velvet was going with the framework here. They’ve got focus, and they’re applying it to elements that a lot of other bands would just as soon be marginalizing.

These guitars aren’t quite the shimmering element they feel like they should be in spots, but they’re also not the sleazy, explosive gutter rock component others would have employed them as for a song of this style; truth be told, they’re rather understated in the grander scheme of things. I don’t think Love Crushed Velvet wanted us to get hung up on the virtuosity of the fretwork in “The Future,” but instead the context in which we’re finding the guitar parts – within a surreal backdrop that wants for us to get lost in all of the details rather than one alone.

This groove doesn’t need a boost from the bassline, and I like that Love Crushed Velvet didn’t blow up the backend of this mix with a lot of over-the-top bass sludge. There’s nothing worse than a murky beat in a driven composition like “The Future,” and while there might be some artists who are cool with the whole slime n’ grime-style tonality we’re seeing more and more of in indie rock right now, this is definitely not a band interested in putting such nonsense into their work (thankfully).

Monstrous in shape but still more efficient than what the majority of the competition has been submitting over the last year or so, Love Crushed Velvet’s all-new single/video combo is worth your time if you consider yourself a rocker with a taste for the postmodern. Psychedelic buffs are going to be particularly enthusiastic about the underlying fuzz in this piece, but I don’t know that I would call “The Future” druggy. It’s working off of a concept and a lot more suspenseful than it is tense, which gives it a stylish sound you’re not likely to hear from a lot of other acts any time soon.

Mindy McCall