Photo by Kitty Handley
Like a fatalist combination of Dry Cleaning’s cynically deadpan poetry and the melodic magnetism of the xx, Nightbus craft their own version of personal apocalypse with a compelling composition that moves with the steadily creeping dread of inescapable inevitability. A cautionary tale of what lies beyond the after-party, a culmination of human refuse indistinguishable from the lifeless ephemera swept and collected into curbside bins after the fete has faded.
“Way Past Three” opens with a mixture of spartan basslines and chiming guitar that immediately establishes a blueprint, each of these sounds carrying through the duration with minor variations to establish a droning sameness wavering with the icy blackness and impenetrable depth of abandoned wells in winter. The track’s momentum is carried by shuffling percussion and hypnotizing vocals delivered with a monotone cadence that finds it’s way into a melancholy melody for key passages, juxtaposing apathy and apprehension within the empty spaces between the instrumentation. Early in the track a lilting “eyes are rollin’, are we dead?” rises with a slow smokiness as the first instance of vocal melody and the initial flicker of humanity, however dim, amidst the cold brick and shuttered portals of a slumbering city to establish a central thesis for the band to expertly expand upon.
Structurally, “Way Past Three” all but foregoes the standard verse-chorus-verse construction, instead favoring a linear nature that plays directly into the concept of a slow but unstoppable forward momentum. Key lines do repeat with slight alterations and recurring musical structures rise and fall into the darkness, but the hovering miasma obstructs any clear instances of familiarity into a sort of hazy deja-vu dismissed with a distracted head shake before continuing onwards through the dark towards an unknown destination.
Like the track itself the video for “Way Past Three” is comprised of a disquieting simplicity, trading bombast for a visually sedate presentation that reinforces the track’s themes without getting in the way of the overarching message. Wandering and directionless, the protagonist moves through a late-night neighborhood, a liminal space where old buildings crouch amidst piles of rubble, hovering somewhere between renovation and deterioration. Colored lights pulse through a yawning bay window, collecting disparate individuals like dusty moths to the soulless phosphorescence of cracking fluorescents. Beyond the threshold lies a room populated with unresponsive bodies overdosing on static from the cathode screen, faces hidden behind plastic masks perverted into cartoonish icons of mindless sheep. A basement show finds the band surrounded by these empty vessels, nodding along blankly in the subterranean confines, crypt-dwelling denizens of the night too alive for a proper burial but too dead to remain above ground. Visibly frustrated, the protagonist eventually finds their way to a literal dead end where the faceless mob emerges from the black, harmless sheep turned predatory demons cornering their prey and preparing to feast on this last semblance of individuality, dissolving it into their own collectively indistinguishable indifference to the ominous lyric “sold yourself for a fantasy, and now it’s way past three.”
Stream “Way Past Three” on Spotify and follow Nightbus on Instagram.
Upcoming Shows
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3 Mar 2023
Nightbus x Echo Chamber presents “late night manic”
Band on the Wall – Manchester, UK
22 Mar 2023
Green Door Store – Brighton, UK
