Fragile Gods Seek Relief From the Deep Anxieties of the Modern Era on “Medicine”

Fragile Gods channel a touch of early 80s New Wave synth pop on the single “Medicine.” It gives the song an uplift and nostalgic glow even as the lyrics are made up of a series of thoughts that point to a deep sense of personal dysfunction. The lyric “Everything is fine until it isn’t” seems like something everyone that has had to live through the last twenty years at a minimum can relate to directly as diminishing expectations and the unacknowledged glass ceilings have been pushing downward and one finds ways to rationalize your way through this increasing sense of anxiety either through believing that you can grind away and enter the economic upper 1% only to find out that that group of people is being crushed under too by their own 1%. When the male and female vocalists sing about trying to find something, in this case medication because other methods might take too long to help in the moment, to make themselves feel better when the economic system is essentially collapsing under its own weight and ecological disaster is being completely unaddressed by the world at large ready to make all existing economic systems and arrangements completely irrelevant not in our children’s or grandchildren’s lifetime but within the next two decades it seems irrational to think it’s realistic to want anything other than a little comfort in the last days of the world as we know it. But in the tradition of other synth pop bands like OMD, Human League and New Order, Fragile Gods use a subversion of melodic pop playfulness to deliver content with a touch of uncomfortably honest irony to not act as soporific but as balm on the nerves to get through to maybe a time when we can do something real about what’s ailing us because nihilistic cynicism and despair aren’t going to be adequate to the situation. Listen to “Medicine” on YouTube and follow Fragile Gods at the links provided.