iris day’s trajectory towards fully-fledged singer-songwriter continues with ‘crawl’, featuring LA SoundCloud stalwart Original God.
Of the many artists that we have the pleasure of keeping up with at 108Mics, iris day has surprised me the most over the years. The days of ‘kuromi face tat’ far behind her, iris has been drip-feeding alt-rock influence into her music ever since ‘pretender’, and ‘crawl’ is an undeniable evolution of that sound. The two songs share a producer (dead yami) but on the latter there’s a distinct improvement not only in the songwriting that fuels the angst-tinged guitars but also in the utilisation of iris day’s screamed vocals.
Recruiting Original God, an artist well known for employing screamed vocals in his splicing of trap and metal music, onboard for this song was a stroke of genius in my eyes. This song excels in highlighting both artists’ vocals, leading with iris day’s stirring emo balladry and culminating with a brief but inspired feature that evokes turn of the century metalcore in a manner that gracefully avoids the pitfalls of nostalgia.
Most impressive about ‘crawl’ is its hook. Immediately memorably, endlessly singable, and shockingly life-affirming (‘I won’t die tonight!). Other lyrics like ‘I kinda miss the old me, when I would cry and breathe slowly’ give insight into how cathartic making art like this must be to iris in such challenging times as these. I can only congratulate her on making such a powerful song about a lost relationship that also deals with personal issues in a way that I would assume is relatable to much of her audience.
iris day understands her craft better than most, she makes better music every time that she gets her hands on a beat such as this. I hope that she continues to be as artistically versatile as she has been up to this point, but I also think it’s worth noting that it is beats like this that truly bring out the best of her ability.
– chris (@malenchanted)
108 MICS 