Written by: Dave Cantrell

Consider this, the opening gambit of this irresistably beguiling track from Atlanta’s CDSM (Celebrity Death Slot Machine) off their debut LP Convertible Hearse: 

“I am still alive

The taste of death makes life sweeter / Like honey in your medicine / Smelling salts cleanse the senses / Filling up the emptiness / I remember this.

I saw the light in the mirror / And I knew it wasn’t luck / It was a fully-loaded truck / Tearing my way with 40 tons of speeding steel / He was asleep at the wheel

I remember this / I remember this…”

Now combine that with a lurid, wholly addictive undercurrent carrying the lyrics forward as if to suggest they’re conveying something somewhere between an accusation and a confession or, just as feasibly, the inevitable tension of a tightwire as it sways between the creeping promise of darkness and the thin, briefly-lit redemptions of life and you’re likely to find yourselves, as we did here at SEM, fully submerged within the brilliantly shadowy parameters it would appear that this band calls home, an assumption that’s easy to confirm given the fact the band themselves posit this track as “macabre new wave with a touch of industrial” and, really, given how thoroughly succinct that is we could have simply inserted that into this text field and called it done but in truth it doesn’t do justice to the breadth of this band. Having blasted the entirety of the album in the office near non-stop the last couple of days, we can confirm that this track is no fluke. On the (not-unexpected) contrary, the debut entire underscores the obvious merits of the track you have before you with an almost preternatural certainty, the sound on the one hand pushing and throbbing all around you to such a degree it will be lighting every one of the dark, dizzying dancefloor strobes your inner DJ is always dreaming about while the hooks, the arrangements, and especially the lyrics ensure this is far from what that otherwise one-dimensional prospect the emphasis on danceability might suggest. No, trust us. If there is such a thing as an ‘ordinary debut’ this ain’t it. Locked into a loose but solid-as-fuck groove, the production capturing every ominous nuance, confidence emanating from every pore, we suggest you hit ‘play,’ have a listen, then hasten to your wantlist and add Convertible Hearse now!