On "VIOLET," the latest single from alt-pop duo Glass Mansions, they dive headfirst into a free fall, the eerie romance of the digital era. Anchored by Jayna Doyle's smoldering-sultry vocals and developed with producer Taylor Webb, the track is a glitchy, glittery spiral down the rabbit hole, a voodoo-trance meditation on our curated online lives and the silent insanity that lies below.
The lure of "VIOLET" happens from the very first pulse of the synth. Its moody, alt-rock undercurrent draws comparisons to artists like Halsey, PVRIS, and Royal & The Serpent, yet it still boasts that unmistakable mystery-masked duo taste of danceable darkness coated in atmospheric anxiety. Jayna's voice is a siren song, guiding you through a haze of static, scrolling, and surrender.
Based on an early episode of Black Mirror, "VIOLET" gets under the skin of the twisted aesthetic of the modern digital age, where everything we do becomes a brand, a brand we have to sell, market, and ultimately live. A raw, tongue-in-cheek, and emotive anthem about the "doomscrolling lifestyle," in which authenticity is traded for aesthetics, and we all wither, head under water, into the algorithm. It does not dare to ask why we keep scrolling. It wonders what remains of us once we become one with the void.
The production of "VIOLET" is its own character. Synths sputter like short-circuited electronics, while glitchy textures and cinematic bombast leave the song feeling like barely contained chaos, much like the personas we wear online are kept on the razor's edge. Taylor Webb's impact is immediately apparent as he crafts a richly dynamic soundscape reflective of the song's emotional disarray.
Glass Mansions has never shied from facing the psychological shadows that lurk beneath pop glitter, yet "VIOLET" may be their most urgent and visually cinematic work to date. With an epic music video to match the song's intensity, this release doesn't just speak to our current digital fatigue but feels like it. Dark, bold, and indestructibly current, "VIOLET" is a mirror that dares us to keep looking.
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