Cassette Revew: Pollen "Buyer's"

[$5 // Edition of 100 // https://pollenatx.bandcamp.com/album/buyers]

On the surface, Pollen has created five songs of rock n roll with elements of punk and garage.   Their style can pull from influences such as Metric, Franz Ferdinand, Priests and "Insomniac" era Green Day.  To put it bluntly: this is a high energy piece of music that will make you want to get up and bop.    Like The Go-Go's before them, they've got the beat.

Underneath this music though that is enough to bring the kids to show is a message about consumerism that I really feel more people need to be addressing.    We currently live in a society where everyone has things and most people just most others by the things that they have.   When I was in grade school I was looked down upon for wearing hand me down clothes.    These days it's supposedly shameful to not have the latest version of the iPhone.   I can only imagine how the kids must handle it in school or at home.  ("But mommy, all the other kids have the iPhone 6cdefg and I only have the iPhone6cdef!")

Though "Buyer's" is an EP that hits fast and hard, as if in a single shot, the message within the song resonates and hopefully will be taken into the minds of many as we move forward in time and hope to progress.    These things we are so focused on are not always the things that we need.   You can break your back working to buy things you don't need just to impress your social group.   Why?   When I was a kid we didn't even have cell phones let alone ones with cameras in them so who cares if the latest version has a slightly better camera in it.

I'm not saying that anyone should burn down Walmarts or give away all of their earthly possessions or anything like that, but you just need to be more mindful of the choices you makes as a buyer.   Being a consumer doesn't have to be a bad thing you just have to know where to draw the line.   Let this music of Pollen guide you because you are in fact a consumer by purchasing this cassette but it is one which you should take great value in both the music and the words.