Ax and the Hatchetmen have made a bold statement with the newly released “Blurry Lights,” a debut collaboration with Albert Hammond Jr. from The Strokes. Released via Arista Records, this track is a technicolor tour that perfectly captures the manic beauty of losing and fighting to hold onto your footing during a psychedelic experience.
Coming from Chicago, Ax and the Hatchetmen are rough-and-tumble indie rockers who dust their energy with horn licks but never miss out on the raw lyricism. Laced with Axel Ellis’s crisp vocals and jangly guitar riffs threading through Hammond Jr’s signature brand of polish-ruggedness, “Blurry Lights” has the avoidance of eyeballs and headlights, a night drive through a city that won’t sit still. Written by a creative collective writing under the names Albert Hammond Jr, Axel Ellis, Salvatore DeFilippis, Jake Sinclair, and Sean Douglas, and also produced by Sinclair, the track is an effort in both performance and spirit.
The song plays like a balancing act between clarity and chaos, between the thrill of sensory overload and the frantic effort to keep it together. There’s kinetic tension from Nick Deputy’s drums kicking in, buoyed by Hunter Olshefke’s steady bassline. Add the brassy textures of Phil Pistone’s trumpet and Quinn Dolan’s sax, and you’ve got a kaleidoscope of sound that’s as disorienting as addictive.
“Blurry Lights” evokes the strange, vivid dissonance of being emotionally unhinged and chemically altered. At that point, your world is spinning, but your feet are still trying to locate the floor, which is a good metaphor for modern life, especially the overstimulated lives of creatives. An accompanying music video, directed by Bobby Hanaford, adds to the surrealism, mixing lo-fi dream sequences with hazy city-night flickers that reflect the song’s vertiginous emotion.
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