Beacon's "Drive" (Song Review)

I'm not a huge fan of sappy love songs. Before you think I have a heart like Tin Man, let me assure you that's not even a little true. I love love. The world doesn't have enough of it. It's the best thing Hallmark ever created. When it comes to music, though, there's just too darn much of the sugary and syrupy sweet stuff.

The best kinds of love songs don't Disnify what we want love to be. Instead, the best kind of love songs describe how love actually is.

Now, I wish each and every single one of us was head-over-heels in love with someone who returned our amorous affections. And I wish that kind of unique unicorn love lasted eternally. With its rainbow road powderd by Pixie Stix-flavored fairydust farts. But sadly, that's not usually how love works. Love often works in mysteriously mucked-up ways. Love isn't a black-or-white binary. As a certain porn novelist once reminded us, love is shifty shades of sway.

That's because love isn't either/or. Love is both/and. Emotions are emotional, not logical, why is why feelings aren't something you can turn on or off. It's not like you're either always in love with someone or you're never not in love with someone. It's more like you're both in love and not in love with someone, all at the same time, and you can't decide whether you're better off living with or without that person because your name is Bono.

On the other hand, maybe you and your former lover used to be in love with each another, and now you're not, and you're okay with that. Yet you'd still like to be a part of each other's lives after everything you've been through and how much time you spent together. But your ex acts like she doesn't know you anymore, and you don't necessarily mourn the loss of the relationship, but instead you mourn the loss of the person you had the relationship with because your name is Gotye.

Or maybe you and your partner have grown apart but she's still in your life. So you keep coming back to her, even though you know it's not the right thing to do. Particularly because it's dependent, despondent, and somehow because of that also disgustingly delicious. You have your nasty needs, after all. Your "heart's grown cold / From being alone" and you need something to fill the void. So you create ridiculously lush electronic tracks, while exploring the dark side of love and separation, because you're Brooklyn-based electronic duo Beacon.

One such shapeshifting and tenebrous track to titillate your tympanum tunnels is "Drive," off of Beacon's first full-length album The Ways We Separate (released in 2013 on indie label Ghostly International).

Don't be fooled by Beacon's warm and gushy buzz blanket of a backdrop. The whirling woozy synthesizers only add to the song's sultry sound setting and therefore might mislead you into making you want to melt. If so, the haze put you in a daze. The fuzzy electronic layers to "Drive," though dreamlike, are devastatingly devilish with its lyrics.

Listen to this indietronic tingler only when you're in a contemplative mood and feel like having your mind blown, your soul dissolved, and your heart hollowed over the dystopic disillusionment of a crumbling connection that's continually rekindled. You won't be able to tell if this song is sexy as hell or heartbreaking as hell. But what the hell, because hell can be what love is all about. Love is confusing, messy, and lurks somewhere in the shadows.

Yet shadows wouldn't even exist if it weren't for light, and Beacons thereof, which is precisely the thing we keep holding out for. Especially those of us who are prone to pondering the perplexities of harmonies and humans who haunt us.