A confident strut of the percussion is all that it takes for the new single “Shame” from bilingual duo Migrant Motel to get everyone in the room dancing like it’s their last night on earth, and while the beat is eroticized by the feverish rhythm of the bassline, it’s only made as potent as it is by the addition of a stinging synthesizer that will form the bones for the best moments in the track.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/migrantmotel/?hl=en
Singer and frontman David Stewart isn’t playing by the establishment’s rules in this fourth release from Migrant Motel, and as much as I love what they’ve dropped in the last few years, the biggest showstopper in their current discography is undoubtedly “Shame,” its most profoundly brooding song. “Shame” begins in a tizzy of multicolored synthesizers that sound futuristic and full of vibrancy. The drums enter the picture and bring with them a precise rigidity that provides the perfect canvas for the singer to paint his pristine vocal harmonies upon. We’re brought to the edge of our seats within the first fifteen seconds of the single, which isn’t something that I’ve found in a lot of new releases this year.
As the cornerstone of the aforementioned discography, “Shame” takes fragments of previous releases and amalgamates them into a slow-churning vortex of melodies that could act as a club soundtrack just as well as it could an afternoon road trip to the mountains or a bonfire-lit evening at the beach. There’s not as much bass as I would have liked, but it doesn’t prevent the hook in the chorus from pummeling us with a huge groove. Migrant Motel wears their soul influences on their sleeve in this track, but there’s not enough of a swing in the rhythm here to describe this as having an urban polish.
The style of attack is straight out of Calvin Harris’ playbook, but I feel like categorizing this song as an adult/contemporary tune would be somewhat dismissive of its experimental qualities, which are really what makes it stand out in the crowded underground talent pool from which it was spawned. If the “alternative” branding is still effective in any capacity, I think that the term would fit this track exceptionally well. It’s not changing the world as we know it, but “Shame” is an outside-of-the-box kind of pop music incarnate.
SMART URL: https://fanlink.to/MigrantMotelShame
It’s still really early to tell, but I like where this duo is going with Migrant Motel as it’s demonstrated in “Shame.” There needs to be a little more focus on the vocal in future mixes, but that said, there’s nothing to indicate that this project is going to do anything but incredible things in 2023. This winter can only be described as being a whirlwind for European, Canadian, and North and South American electropop artists, but in all of the chaos and scene politics, there have been some deeply gifted performers coming out of the woodwork with truly gripping content like this. I’m looking forward to hearing some more from Migrant Motel, and after you give “Shame” a spin, I think you will be, too.
Chadwick Easton