Today, rock duo PONCÉ – comprised of Carson and Michael Poncé – releases their debut album, 7-track effort Afterglow. The title doesn’t lie, as every track is absolutely glowing with their genre-bending talent. They start off with “Surrender to the Night”, which glitters with that 80’s synth pop nostalgia we’ve been getting back into lately. Tracks like “Elevator” contain more Rick Springfield-esque rock sounds, while “Moving to Los Angeles” has almost a folk sound to it. The majority of the recording belongs alongside the best of the best of yesteryear, and we’ve been spinning it on repeat.
Check out the album in its entirety below, then maneuver over to the “Existential Crisis” playlist the guys curated exclusively for Impose!
Father John Misty’s “Pure Comedy” has us questioning just about everything right now so we made an existential crisis playlist to celebrate!
Courtney Barnett – “Avant Gardener”
The opening line reads “I sleep in late, another day, oh what a wonder, oh what a waste”. Definitely had moments of this at 16-years-old wondering what’s next and what’s the point of anything we were doing day in and day out.
Father John Misty – “Pure Comedy”
My favorite line is “And they get terribly upset, when you question their sacred texts, written by woman-hating epileptics”. Just the idea that whether it’s religion, war, etc. we can push aside the facts from history we don’t like and continue to place value on the beliefs we have been raised to hold.
Bob Dylan – ‘With God on Our Side”
Righteous war ordained by God. But whose God? Whose wars? Dylan – enough said.
Elliott Smith – “Ballad of Big Nothing”
Elliott Smith always knew which heart strings to pull to make you clinically cynical and depressed. This one is no different. “You can do what you want to whenever you want to,
You can do what you want to there’s no one to stop you”.
Jeff Buckley – “Eternal Life”
On his Live at Sin-é album, Buckley explains it himself: “This is a song about… it’s an angry song. Life’s too short and too complicated for people behind desks and people behind masks to be ruining other people’s lives, initiating force against other people’s lives, on the basis of their income, their color, their class, their religious beliefs, their whatever…”
The Velvet Underground – “Sunday Morning”
Just a good ol’ song about worldly paranoia.
Neil Young – “After The Gold Rush”
A little more environmental than existential but still asks what are we going to choose to cherish, value and preserve in this world. I think FJM said it a little more bluntly in “Pure Comedy” when he said, “they build fortunes poisoning their offspring”.
Dolly Parton – “9 to 5”
This is a little more playful but when you’re still a broke rock ‘n’ roller schlepping it, you sit at your desk listening to “Pure Comedy” on repeat and question the meaning and purpose of what’s on the other side of the computer screen that stares back at you for eight hours every day, five days a week.
Talking Heads – “Once In A Lifetime”
Really captures a character who wanders through life without any awareness or questioning of why things are the way they are.
U2 – “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
After nine songs, we’re still just as lost as we were and still searching for answers. I think U2 captures that with this song but also encourages the idea of personal spirituality and the need to cling to and believe in something bigger than, as FJM so poetically puts it, “this godless rock that refuses to die.”
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Afterglow is out now. Keep up with Poncé here.
