General Fiasco

Rock still wins. I keep coming back to this watching people in clubs nod their heads in unison to some minimal electronic track, everyone in black, everyone trying to look contemplative when they’re really just waiting for the drop. Guitar and drums and a voice hit different. They always have.

The Strathern brothers from Northern Ireland figured this out. Around 2007, when everyone was chasing electronic music, they brought in more members instead and started making actual rock. General Fiasco. Owen, Enda, Stephen. Just the names sound like a basement band, not a bedroom producer with a synth.

They released Buildings and it’s the kind of indie rock I keep forgetting I need. Not polished, not trying to be important—the version that soundtracks your actual life without you noticing. School trips. Parking in someone’s driveway with the engine running. First time driving alone on a highway at night with nowhere specific to go. The moments you don’t talk about but never shake.

There’s something about a riff that just works. It hits the same nerve every time, whether you heard it last week or ten years ago. Electronics can be clever. But they can’t quite do that. Or maybe they could and they’re just not interested.