Song Review: Peacemaker by Dayfiction
“I’m not a saint, and I have no say,” Evan Solomon lets out, across a misty and grey backdrop. Tension is caught in a flash and he orders “go and get it, go and get it, go and get it go.” Lightning flashes across the track and cuts across the eyes.
“Peacemaker” is the first track since local outfit Dayfiction released their debut album in December. That LP, entitled Blurry World, marked a massive jump in songwriting for the band, transforming from a promising youthful punk band to an absolute post-punk force. With this massive jump, the band entered their first professional studio, the Bakery, under the oversight of Will Beasley. Beasley helped instill the professional production that this new batch of songs deserve. “Peacemaker” is the track birthing a newly refined Dayfiction, seeing them lean even harder into that current European-post-punk sound, as seen by the likes of The Murder Capital and Gilla Band. I think more importantly, it leans into a more complex world. This is no easy feat considering the tracks on the first album. “Bullet In The Sun” and “Euphoric Horror” were some of the most original and hard-hitting tracks in my library, but “Peacemaker” has taken them to a whole new level of immersive world-building.
You peer into the tune through a foggy and cracked industrial window, peering past a ragged yet stylish group. The man-o-war bass shakes the glass, pieces fall down in glimmering drops. The drums beat out a sporadic and antsy rhythm. You find yourself on the other side, amidst a rising wind of tension. The wire is pulled tight, and suddenly, the storm breaks. The room erupts in a fiery smoke, ripping guitars flood the overhead speakers around the decrepit warehouse that has become a hub of subjectivity. Lined eyes snap open through the haze in an unbroken line of contact. “All I see is either love or hate.” Blaze and spit. Take a minute to put yourself in those flashing and twitching eyes.
One of the hallmarks of this track are the Fontaines-esque hypnotic repeating lyrics that paint the walls like revolutionary graffiti. Solomon rattles off “the superstars, the coppers, and pornstars, the victors and the bastards” before delivering a mesmerizing recitation of “it’s a different world to me.” You are right there with Solomon, swimming through territory yet charted.
Where do you go when you have fallen down? When you have made the mistake so much you have become it? You go and get it. Lyrically, this song falls into two distinct camps, two opposing reactions to the brutality of self-error. These two forces, “the victor and the bastard.” The bastard hammers blow into the side of the head, cursing and sweating like a rabid sailor. This side comes with a hopelessness, “just a pig to the show” as Solomon puts it. Feeling a ravenous spurn that cannot be pinned or barred. It is a “tinted window pane” that masks the innocence of life and distorts reality into something much crueler. The innocent becomes the intentional. The ringing and feeding guitar of Noah Brown pulses in the ear like intrusive thoughts whispering lies about the ones you love. The air is heavy and blankets you down, begging you to join the floor.
The opposing force is much more deliberate. A sense of overcoming the easy route, and hammering away the weak and doubting worm that slips through unnoticed. “I am not a saint and I have no say” is about the most honest line you can find in this life. It is an incredibly difficult mantra that echoes through your eyes as you hit the ground. Backing vocals swell into your chest and Solomon bursts into a resilient oath of “falling it down just to pick it back up, following up to the start of it all.” This makes the self-inflicted order of “go and get it, go and get it, go and get it, go” all the more powerful. It is a man driving himself with a whip to become something greater, something truly great, and cast aside a former self, one that holds him back from the future.
This single was released recently simultaneously with a music video done by Cat McCarthy, which you can view above. It is my belief that “Peacemaker” deserves to be on a major label. This sound is rare, incredibly rare, and the delivery is some of the most professional work to come out of the Richmond punk scene. Stay up to date with Dayfiction shows, you do not want to miss “Peacemaker” live.
“Peacemaker” is available to stream now via Bandcamp and Spotify. Make sure to follow Dayfiction on social media to keep up-to-date on their future releases and updates.
