Pop punk rockers Anarbor continue a nearly 20-year music career together with the release of their newest single “Emergency” today. “Emergency” is a collaboration with rapper Sammy Adams and is the final track out before the release of their upcoming newest album “Love & Drugs”. 2022 is the year of experimentation in Anarbor’s musicianship from their singles released thus far, and “Emergency” is no different.
The track, musically, is an interesting mixture of reggae, pop, and rap. It sounds like those three genres might not mix well at all, but the result is an interesting listen. The pop sound effects over reggae beats makes a track made for radio play, and Adams’s rapping spices it up. What is most important is how true to the point and purpose of reggae Anarbor stayed when writing this song; they use the rhythmic, feel-good energy of the song to convey an important message in the lyrics.Guitarist Danny Stravers described the song as a way to “address the fear culture that grew out of control over the course of the last couple elections and the pandemic”, and the lyrics convey this with brevity and simplicity in the language whilst maintaining the message’s power. Even the least anxiety-prone person will break and panic eventually when the world seems like nothing but an onslaught of bad news, despite how “mindless” our social and mainstream media intakes may seem (“There ain’t no need to panic / We got these habits I don’t understand it / We hit the cruise control, it’s automatic”). It is often hard to escape that building anxiety because most of us are so dependent on social media especially, which means we never really escape the bad news and the division amongst one another. Despite all that, this song proves “there ain’t to need to panic” (even if it is only for a few minutes). “Love & Drugs” will be out September 2, 2022 via ONErpm. Be sure to pre-save the album so you can hear it first thing when it releases!
