Listen to the new album by Some Gifts and read a track-by-track breakdown!

Today we are thrilled to bring you the premiere of the new album by Los Angeles-based post-hardcore band Some Gifts! This is the band’s fourth album and is called Misguided. We caught up with lead vocalist and guitarist Vic Lazar to hear about each of the tracks. Misguided will be out everywhere on October 4 via Killer Kern Records. Listen to the album and read the track-by-track below!

Misguided Track-By-Track Breakdown

Sympathy For The Free Market

Playing off of a Rolling Stones title, “Sympathy For The Free Market” is about unimaginable wealth from the perspective of us common wage earners. It’s hard for a lot of us to conceive of having the kind of wealth that can charter a private trip to space, let alone not having to live paycheck to paycheck.

Psychic Tension

I had watched a documentary about female mental health mistreatment and abuse in the 40’s and 50’s. The term “psychic tension” is a medical condition that was created to market Valium. That term struck a nerve in me and inspired me to write the song from the perspective of a woman being forced to endure an unbearable mental state.

WTFU

An acronym for “Wake the F#%k up”; a phrase that feels appropriate for the current social-media centered world. Being “woke” to some people apparently means you’re a bleeding-heart liberal, but to me it simply means being empathetic towards others and trying not to be a bully.

Tina Turner

While watching a documentary on Tina Turner, the phrase “what’s love got to do with it” smacked me upside the head as a great line for a new song we were working on. Tina’s story really resonated with me and I felt compelled to create an anthem for her. Her passing a year later made it bittersweet. Gone but not forgotten.

Common Enemy

The past decade has ushered in an era of un-enlightenment. “Common Enemy” is a song about the result of the divisiveness and explosion of misinformation online. Dog whistles and racism seem to go hand in hand.

Toddler Tantrums

Hopefully my last song about the orange oligarch who wishes to return America back to 1950. “Toddler Tantrums” is about a baby running a country, a petulant toddler holding the world hostage for copious treats and not wanting to go to bed. Having two toddler-aged kids at the time of writing this song made it somewhat all too easy.

Unhealthy Fixation

The seemingly vile nature of certain politicians’ treatment of the LGBTQ and trans populations led me to create lyrics of a scathing nature. “Unhealthy Fixation” is my indictment of these hypocritical political jackals and it feels really good screaming this one. Again, the idea of being “kind” & “compassionate” should come naturally to such “pious” people, right?

Mid-Level Bands

It came up in a conversation while recording that there was such a thing as a mid-level band - a legacy act playing the county fair, or a one-hit wonder that plays festivals only. “B-market” cities felt like such a dismissive term; the song is essentially about how the music industry operates these days with social media engagement.

Misguided

Gun violence in American schools is a pandemic and I felt the need to write a song about it. The lyrics to this are difficult to sing, but I felt it was important. “Thoughts and prayers” is not a feasible policy when kids are being killed. It’s maddening and really disheartening that there’s an entire media industry that enables hatred and regurgitates the incendiary rhetoric that leads to senseless tragedies.

Dopamine

Dopamine is described as “the pathway to pleasure”, and the song is about the need to sustain said pleasure. I wrote it about the impact of screens on kids, the idea that their brains are being hijacked by technology, and how it’s leading to some scary results, especially when kids are predisposed to mental health issues.

TSB

Mike had mentioned his car having a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) issued for a potential recall. TSB felt like a great term for the state of policing in America and an easy acronym to riff on. TSB ends the album on a rallying cry about overhauling the current state of police. Replacing it with a more community-minded approach to protecting society and all of its inhabitants, not just the property owners, is an idea that I feel strongly about.