Alright, this one settled in differently. Not with a bang, but like noticing the colour drain slowly from a favourite rug. Michellar’s “LOVE EARTH” wraps its stark message in this comfortable cloak of indie rock softness, a bit of alt-country dust on its boots. The female vocal leads, clear and steady, piloting through a landscape that feels increasingly precarious.

The subject matter – environmental crisis, the fraying edges of our natural world – isn’t new ground. But Michellar avoids the usual shouts. Instead, there’s this poignant laying out of facts: the diminishing returns of clean air, the loss of vibrant blues in sky and sea. It’s presented with a kind of weary urgency.

That guitar work, weaving through it all… funny, it caught my ear in a strange way. For a moment, it had the insistent drone of cicadas buzzing madly in late August, that sound that tells you summer’s lease is almost up, that a change is irrevocably coming. A sound both natural and unnerving.

The song firmly plants the responsibility on the collective “us.” It suggests we’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, finally noticing the rising water level around our ankles, yet somehow still debating the best way to bail. Past efforts haven’t cut it; the call here is for something more profound, a unified shift not just in action, but maybe in how we fundamentally perceive our place.

It stresses this isn’t just about our patch of time, but about the inheritance, the world we’re signing over to those who follow. The track doesn’t offer easy answers; it hangs in the air after the last note fades, heavy with the weight of consequence.

Does a song like this shift the axis of anything? Or does it just make the quiet hum of inaction momentarily louder?

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