With song titles like "Stillborn birth of the Atomic Finger," "No Utopia," "The Ghost, the Gunslinger, and the Priest," and "Revolt Now Security," it becomes fairly apparent that The Motion are not your everyday collect a paycheck, shiny happy people, type of pop singers.
The Motion is more in the tradition of Rage Against the Machine, with a healthy dose of 70's Detroit rock mixed in (MC5, The Stooges), with a lot of socio-political commentary mixed in throughout. Cold Heroes requires that you pay attention, if you want to hear everything the band is trying to get across.
"Stillborn..." deals with a man straining against himself, fighting his own rebellion and self-destructiveness. Brent Larson's vocals here approach Chris Cornell's (Soundgarden, Audioslave). "I'm Not Going to Fight (To Make You Feel Normal)" is a long rant about trying to maintain a relationship when one partner is trying to destroy it.
"How Things Got This Far" is a political anthem about the social order, and about how young people should be allowed to be just that, instead of having to concern themselves over how bad the world has become:
The clock ticks punching bags in overtime
Some will advance, others will stand in line
(access denied)
Broken backs hoist the dominant caste
Do you know what I mean?
The plight of the working man is demonstrated on several songs here, much in the style of Midnight Oil lyrically. "Taming of the Mascot" speaks of the rich getting richer on the labors of others: "this house built on the backs of the lowly." Another theme is emotional trauma, illustrated in "Still Running," "No Utopia," and "Out of the Darkness, Into the Light."
Part protest rock, part stoner rock (think Kyuss or Queens of the Stone Age), and part pure angst in the mode of Nirvana, Cold Heroes pulls no punches in addressing the world's problems, and the rage that is fueled by the frustration of seeing no way out. Rate this one PG-13, but pay attention to what it says. Their views are summed up in a bumper sticker popular nowadays: "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."
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