By Kavit Sumud | February 4th, 2013
I’ll start off my review with a disclaimer: you have to give this track until about 2:44 mark until it really gets going. It breaks my 1:30 minute intro rule for tracks (a metric for whether a song is unwieldy), but disco producer Prins Thomas does such a breathtaking job on the opening that I didn’t even notice. Plus, Thomas turns weird rocker Carmen Villain’s track into a delicious piece of angel pop that belies the passionately lascivious lyrics at every turn in glorious ways that track length ceases to matter.
Villain sings about blindfolding her eyes to the warnings of others that the intimacy she places herself in “is going to send her to hell.” She’s “frozen free” in a sinful life, “reaching for the skyline” to climb over the emotional mountain peaks to reach the “softest touch.” The song, especially with the sensitively intuitive production of Prins Thomas, acts both as a discotheque-worthy lullaby and a mantra of self worth as Villain tries to “take the fear out of forever.”
To me it reads a bit like the moments when you realize the freedom of queer or alternative sexualities that provide access to the honest, happier you. Religious guilt litters the track, though it never feels weighty and instead serves as a vehicle for newfound agency. Through Thomas’ remix, Villain is taking us on a dancing blitz to escape the clutches of a needlessly judgmental society. Self-exploration never felt so sexy and sonically staggering.