"I told myself I'd never release a political song," Varga says. But in "Minute Man," there's no disentangling of the personal and the political. The song plays like a postcard from the end times, signed with love and lit with a flare. "Minute Man" is a fast-burning alt-rock anthem, characterized by crunchy guitars and propulsive percussion, but there's a lot more beneath the surface. This is the soundtrack for a love story set amid the crumbling of society, a scene from a movie where two people fall deeper in love as the world around them falls apart. The duality is what makes it magnetic. It's both rebellious and tender, a fist raised that keeps a hand tightly in the other.
The lyrics sketch a scorched-earth world without telling you how you're supposed to feel about it. There is a real, raw feeling and the irresistible force of connection when everything else gives way. That's intentionally wide open, and that's the idea. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Varga embodies the angst of emo and marries it to the storytelling prowess of the South. You can hear the echoes of basement shows and family vinyls in his sound, a mix of past and present, chaos and clarity. "Minute Man" is the sort of song that smokes you between the ribs and stays in your head. It's the anthem we didn't know we needed for a generation too tired to scream, but too alive to roll over and go back to sleep. But with this one, Sam Varga is rewriting the blueprint for what rock of the modern day can be.
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