Lessons in Crime’s new single, “Reply ASAP,” bounces along with the kind of infectious energy you’d want for a summer road trip, but it’s a smokescreen for a uniquely modern state of inertia. It feels less like a rock song and more like one of those old pneumatic message tubes from a 1940s department store—all zip and kinetic energy on the outside, but inside, a little capsule of desperate, static guilt is stuck somewhere deep within the walls, between floors. The song perfectly captures the feeling of knowing you should, you must, you want to respond, but the signal from brain to fingertips has been inexplicably severed.
Liam Schwisberg and Paolo Pace have crafted an anthem for the ghost in the machine of our own making. Over shimmering synths and a resolute guitar line that chugs forward with a confidence the narrator desperately lacks, we are invited into a cycle of self-sabotage. Lyrically, we’re stranded. The Ottawa duo articulate that quicksand of digital obligation with startling clarity—the paralysis born from the simple, crushing weight of expectation. For a self-produced track, its sonic landscape is expansive, blending orchestral hints with clean pop architecture, a contrast that heightens the internal messiness of being so capable and yet so completely stuck.
This isn’t a song that offers a solution. It’s a diagnostic scan. It holds up a perfectly-produced mirror to our own inertia, reflecting the silent scream behind a screen that’s gone dark. It validates the exhaustion of performing connection when your own batteries are dead.
The track ends, and the silence it leaves behind is loud. That little red notification bubble on your phone seems to glow a bit brighter, a bit more knowingly. It doesn’t ask for an answer; it just makes you wonder, who is waiting for you to break through the static?
