Quaint Delusions—comprised of Kevin DeHart (drums), Steve Dicks (bass), and Michael Starks (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion)—return with "Anything Real," a track that hovers in the nebulous space between clarity and abstraction. Built on lyrical ambiguity and sonic subtlety, the song invites you to peer through the haze and wonder: what’s real, anyway? According to the band’s own cryptic Bandcamp notes, the answer is both everyone and no one, an existential shrug that lands somewhere between unsettling and strangely reassuring.
"Anything Real" opens with a sparse electric piano, its gentle tones suspended in a faintly atmospheric mist. The vocals drift in like a soft confession, understated yet captivating in their intimacy. Starks’ delivery is unhurried and searching, as if turning over thoughts without the urgency to pin them down. A warm, steady bassline enters next, grounding the song without weighing it down, while subtle textural details—delicate guitars and faint synth touches—flicker like fireflies in the periphery.
Just past the two-minute mark, the track begins to unfurl. DeHart’s drums arrive with a quiet insistence, propelling the song forward as Starks pushes his vocals into broader, expressive territory. The arrangements deepen: dark, brooding horns slink into the mix, lending a murky elegance that contrasts beautifully with the simplicity of the opening. “So you vie for the attention of the zeitgeisty few / Why would that opinion ever matter to you,” Starks sings, delivering a pointed jab at our collective obsession with online validation. The lyric feels almost like a sigh—a reminder of how fleeting and hollow modern approval can be.
By the time strings swell toward the end, "Anything Real" has fully taken shape as a composition that thrives in its contrasts: delicate yet layered, introspective but unafraid to build to grandeur. The production deserves particular credit for balancing its elements so deftly; there’s a restraint here that ensures each instrument feels intentional, every swell earned.
Quaint Delusions aren’t trying to spell anything out. Instead, they lean into the beauty of ambiguity, where questions are more compelling than answers. "Anything Real" is a meditative, beautifully crafted piece of songwriting that wrestles with uncertainty and lets the listener make of it what they will. In its restraint, it achieves a kind of quiet power—a song as elusive as its themes, yet undeniably resonant.
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