In an era in which the American political landscape can feel confounding or misleading, D. Marin Perez has returned with an album for our volatile times.
Following up Perez's debut record, Change Is (released back in 2021), Symbols is comparatively more ambitious and conceptual. Perez took big risks even in the very recording process itself, recording the album on a cassette tape. The cassette tape recordings move the album into a more sixties rock-inspired sound that is the perfect supplement to Perez's political musings. The album was proceeded by four singles, the first being "Senator Senator".
"Senator Senator" is a burning analysis of how money keeps those in power eternally at the top of the political food chain. Here, Perez is deeply critical of the way politicians often use inflammatory language to stimulate a "culture war" while those with money bid for the power in the mean time.
The song has anger sewn into many of its finer details, from the vintage filter on Perez's vocals to the anthemic guitar riffs that are slowly surrounded by building percussion and bass. The single also comes with a visualizer that includes black-and-white footage of the white house and Congress to further drive home the narrative.
Following "Senator Senator," Perez released "Crying Wolf:" a song with a similar political sentiment.
"Crying Wolf" uses the old folktale of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" to paint a parallelism between those pushing false narratives in politics and the tale's unfortunate little shepherd. The song is an indictment of politicians who highlight false threats to keep themselves in power. "You're the crying wolf / Take a look in the glass and you'll see / The tears are soaking your fur," sings Perez. This song was also released with a music video featuring a looney-tunes style "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" cartoon.
The album isn't all politics, however. With the song "No One Knows," Perez aims to get personal and existentially reflective.
The song is substantially different in tone from the rest of the album, being slower and more acoustic by comparison. With this transition into singer-songwriter and folk, Perez uses his lyricism to give some shape to some of life's strangest mysteries. With the refrain "No One Knows," he bounces back and forth between all sorts of strange truths, like "why the universe expands ever so rapidly" and "why the pastor and the pagan bicker endlessly." The track features a music video involving a solo dance routine that accompanies the lyrics.
The title track, "Symbols," is the album's closer and also one of its biggest highlights.
This song functions as Perez's most expansive and thought-provoking observations on the symbols that guide people politically and socially in America. It appears as the album's core, being the longest track that summarizes most of the album's core themes. The song bounds between symbols like icing on a wedding cake, the Bible, and even a man arrested by the police, collecting them into a song that draws them in as their center of gravity. The track is appropriately epic, featuring huge vocal harmonies that build over the song's nearly seven minute length.
Never afraid to advocate for change, Perez has said that his songs are for "paying attention" to the political and social world around us. With Symbols, he is re-orienting the way in which we see the parading narratives coming from across the political spectrum.
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