A youthful lust for sexual satisfaction. The angst that comes with a stinging hangover and cigarette-stained fingertips. Between the heat of the dancefloor and the scratch of tonight’s mistress, experiencing everything that comes with being a young gun on the prowl is like nothing else in life.
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Tash Hagz is taking us into that moment in his new single “Dependent On,” and though the strut of the percussion and growl of the guitars would have been enough to make its point to us, these elements serve as a mere tip of the sonic iceberg. In utilizing everything from the negative space between instruments in the mix to the actual style of the mix itself in telling his story here, Tash Hagz makes a case for efficiency in alternative rock that hasn’t seen much screen time in the past fifteen years. Ironically enough, it could be this point that makes “Dependent On” sound like something geared towards a plausible future for the rock and roll genre over anything else, and to some extent verifies that this artist is someone who can be trusted as credible in a period overwhelmed by halfhearted posers.
The sway of the drums is fantastic and ultimately responsible for creating the depth of the groove in this song, but I like that the percussion isn’t generally overstated beside the bassline here. That would have been easy to do given the clandestine placement of the bass beneath the vocal, but alas, Tash Hagz’s attention to detail really doesn’t allow for anything to get cluttered in this release. When the chorus gets to be a little smothering, it feels completely intentional and not as though it were the result of negligence behind the board.
The singing is much louder than it has to be, but it still works because of the way the instrumentation backing it up has been integrated into the structure of the verses (which is something I don’t often hear a lot of in pop/rock nowadays). A lot of time and love went into making this just right, and I don’t think you need to possess a professionally trained to recognize this.
Critics have been talking a lot about a pending resurgence in British rock for a couple of years now, but I don’t think it’s felt as real as it does in 2021 – and this is undeniably because of the work underground players like Tash Hagz have been putting into their genre and their scene. Though it’s aesthetically different in numerous ways, a song like “Dependent On” gives me the same rush I got out of Psychocandy back in the day, and it’s no surprise that much of the former’s charm is sourced from the same place as the latter.
It’s all about unadulterated sonic physicality for Tash Hagz, and if what I’m hearing in “Dependent On” is what I need to be expecting out of his future work, I won’t be making the mistake of ignoring his upcoming releases for anything. He’s got my endorsement, and I don’t think I’ll be the last critic to approve of what he’s done here.
Chadwick Easton