Rotterdam outfit Library Card return with “Sunflowers”, a track which masquerades as relatively laid back compared to some of the band’s more stormy material (for reference, behold this live session of “Residual Heat”). “I think there’s no amount of distance great enough to get away from all the things I’m feeling right this minute,” vocalist Lot van Teylingen (they/them) exclaims right away, planning a getaway from the futilities of molding chaos in one’s favor.
The sense of tranquility Library Card attempt to maintain on “Sunflowers”, however, threatens to crumble beneath the weight of Van Teylingen’s mounting anxieties. The potent rhythm section of Kat Kalkman (bass) and Emre Karayalçin (drums) plummet and soar with restrained violence underneath Mitchell Quitz’s polished, repetitive guitar melody – which marginally recalls lusher material by bands like Trail of Dead, Ought or The Thermals.
“Sunflowers” is a song that stands on shaky ground from the outset, funneling controlled tension into brief fissures of grace. It feels like a small victory amidst the crippling terrors that threaten to collapse the music, a struggle the lyrics echo urgently as well: ‘I keep telling myself that maybe the world will seem a little less loud through a soft vignette of smoke clouds’.
“We keep rushing through life, trying our very best to keep up with everything and everyone, feeding into our conditioned ambition and internalised capitalism, but because we try to do everything all at once, nothing really gets done,” Van Teylingen comments on the track. “Nothing is in our control, nothing will happen the way you intend it to happen, nothing is set in stone. It’s okay. It is what it is.”
Listen to “Sunflowers” below, and find it on streaming outlets.
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