If you want to fuck with me…

At least take me to bed.

That sounds like the sarcastic, sly saying I’d send as shade to a shittastic lover.  Because, see, like Aiden, I’m a bit weary of this modern love. And no, I don’t mean some postmodern, distant, corrupted version of romance that people like to rail against in their wet dreams, but rather a distaste for people who hearken back to and ‘chase those fairy tales’.  I don’t think my generation understands what to do with this little thing called love. We’ve been mass inundated with its failures: monogamy’s wandering eye, suburban mind blowing boredom, the 2.1 oh-my-fucking-god-I-can’t-believe-we-have-these-things-now kid nightmare.  Every smile we see hold the memories of a thousand tales told to us.

Still, needing human affection, we’re a split generation, with half of us throwing our head against the same wall until we bleed or lose the ability to care; and the other apathetically spouting ‘Just Say No’. Lacking naivete anymore, it isn’t love that’s the issue: it’s the parameters we force on it in the modern era. It’s why I’m going to listen to a track by an artist like Aiden over another ‘holy balls, I’m crying cos my partner’s genitalia got some’ song anyday.

And because unbridled honesty makes great music, “The Cleaner” is a track that sparkles in the darkness of its sounds. Its a pleasant  ‘interactive violence of the mental sort’ that comes through the ears like a dark indietronica exhumation of frustration for something better, of physical touch without all the toxic drama. That exhumation feels like optimism, coming through like sun in the chorus, and playing with the coal mine dark lyrical stanzas. In that way, it reminds me of two of my favorite tracks of the year: Aiden Grimshaw’s “The Way We Are” and Digits “Love Is Affection”.

“The Cleaner” boiled to its base: If you’re going to insist on hysterics, can we at least get a hate bang out of it?

Follow Aiden on Soundcloud and Facebook.

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