[one more shot from The Oracle, who has written enough on this blog to have their own category on the site. They’ve long been a fervent believer in the music of Cam Cole, which you will have gathered from their review of the 2023 Freaks in a Field festival. However, Cam Cole’s new single was released a couple of days ago and Kitty HAS THINGS TO SAY]
I’ve loved Cam Cole for nearly 7 years. Since the days when his music sounded like it was clawing its way out of a dark alley at 2 a.m. Raw, ragged, alive, and impossibly human. I promoted every track, shouted from rooftops (not sorry for pissing off friends, family, neighbours, my kids). I annoyed everyone and embarrassed myself frequently. All part of being in the outer circle of the fan circus. I didn’t care; I’d get the tracks in people’s ears one way or another.
And now Rabbit (She’s What I Want) is out, and… well…
It’s not bad. It’s competent. It has guitars. It has drums… but it’s like someone asked Cam to make Vibes [68th best song of 2023], but polite (and maybe offered him tea and biscuits while he was at it). It’s like an echo or a shadow masquerading as the thing that made us fall in love in the first place. The primal, streetwise energy that made you feel like his music could chew your soul up and spit it out? It’s gone for a coffee break.
Maybe it’s stuck in traffic. Maybe it’s just tired.
The lyrics try, bless them, but compared to the gnarly poetry he usually spits out – like he’s in a duel with authority and the sun itself with a smoke behind his ear – they land like a limp-wristed handshake (and we all know Cam’s hands are usually on fire). You want to embrace them, but they don’t quite hug back. It’s like watching your favourite rollercoaster from the safety of a kiddie ride. Fun? Kinda. Heart-stopping? Not really.
It doesn’t reach the heights of his older material and that’s okay – artists experiment. But for those of us who’ve danced in the dirt and shouted every lyric into the night, this one’s going to feel like a missed step.
Here’s the cruelest thing: I want to love it. I really want to. I want to rave about it (I mean, come on, I’ve hyped everything else for years). But I can’t and I think that hurts more than the track itself. The first weak spot on an otherwise unflinching career where every track used to feel spiritually like a haka. For this one to feel like… well, not emotive, put it that way.
And as someone who’s watched that music make people feel alive in the streets and online, I say that with love and just a tiny bit of heartbreak.
Necessary Evil 