By August Edwards
July 28, 2024—Albuquerque, NM
Heavy metal band Anesthesia has come out with a new EP called Chasin the Moon. I first heard Anesthesia from the alley behind the Launchpad. I was 20 and couldn’t get into the 21+ show, but I wanted to listen. I’d seen their name everywhere and people I knew spoke highly of them. From the alley six years ago, I got a crystal-clear sound. Sight unseen, I got the sense that they were serious artists. They didn’t take time to bullshit between songs, and everything felt delivered with muscular precision. I felt their inimitable confidence reaching out and transforming me—me, sitting next to the dumpster.
Chasin the Moon has come out at an opportune time. I am staying at my friend’s place on Princeton for a couple of days. It’s my old neighborhood, too, and ever since I’d left I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to goof around at Satellite Coffee for a couple of hours. I have good memories of productivity there: I’d finish essays last minute for school; I’d actually answer some emails and texts; I’d read. It’s like 11am, late July, Sunday, and I happily walk to Satellite.
This July is hot. The sun shines down from directly above me. The first track on Chasin the Moon is called “Skettie (Stuck in Dallas).” It’s a clean intro song that, as a fan of the band, intrigued me. Gentle but stately swipes on the guitar create a Spanish-like flourish. It reconfigures my state of mind. I sort of begin to take pride in the heat, just now, in this summer. Like, if things are getting hotter, I can handle it. I didn’t press play on Chasin the Moon thinking to create a soundtrack-for-my-life situation, but that’s what happened. Not to be an idiot but I guess that’s what music does inherently. That’s what I’m thinking on my walk to the coffee shop.
The EP’s title track is another western banger. It’s got that chain-gang rhythm and a rattly guitar tone. I’m reminded of an interview I read with vocalist Jake Pacheco years ago where he shares that his first concert or show was at a Holiday Inn bar, where he heard a country band play. I get the sense that this album could be an homage to that history—especially considering the constant inspiration of the desert. I’m also thinking about talking to Joshua Lee, guitarist for prominent ABQ country band Hooks and the Huckleberries, who said that country is the hardest genre to play and play well. As someone who doesn’t play music, I don’t think I can truly comprehend that sentiment (though I'm thinking about how every country song endeavors to be the perfect country & western song in a way that differs from songwriting in other genres). But I can understand how playing goes beyond technicalities; there’s something deeper a musician has to tap into.
“Chasin the Moon” is checking a few boxes. One: a catchy, steady riff. Two: a really cool guitar solo from Jon Singleton. I notice some lyrics—“Got a voice and I’m gonna keep singin / They’re all around and they’re all still breathin / Got a song, got some words, got a tune / We’re singin loud, all together singin under the moon.” Practically sailing, we reach one of the final lines: “This song’s for you.” I really love devoting myself to a song. What I mean by that is when I can show up for a song the way it shows up for me, then I feel a lot closer to myself and whatever humanity is. Even if I briefly forget all the work that goes into making a song—lived experience of the artist, learning an instrument, etc—the result of a song tells me who it is. When I can meet that personification, I’ve done my job as a listener. I think there are other jobs a listener has but internalizing a lyric like “got a voice and I’m gonna keep singin” is huge. On this brief walk to the coffee shop, I feel more like myself than I have in a while.
I hardly notice how the university area is a ghost town. I got a later start to my day than I’m proud of. But here, I'm finding myself in space. I walk by streets I’ve lived on, where I had good days and bad. I walk by cars parked in driveways and squat yucca plants. And “Sweet Death,” the next track on Chasin the Moon, is making me laugh. Another country rock romp, it is kind of sludgy, but in the militaristically tight Anesthesia way. I think the song it pokes fun at the passage of time. And, in Anesthesia fashion, it is reinforced with a “fuck it” message. (Anesthesia has fuck it in spades. It is hard for me to move past that aspect of their ideology, the atoms that make them. I wish I could put it nicer, or less crassly, but in the end, I don’t give a fuck either!)
“Run from Me” is a bit of a return to a harder-edged Anesthesia. The wailing guitar yanks us in. As the song progresses, Dax Lujan fires off machinegun-like blasts on the drums. And just as I think I’m settling in, the song is over, which I know because the music cuts out and Jake says “Bitch!” like a last laugh. If the EP is short, it is bite-yer-ankles short. If it’s sweet, it’s sweet like three beers on a hundred-degree day.
Outside the Satellite patio I remember having coffee with the first person I ever knew who wrote about music. Her name was Al Smith. We became friends easily. I remember sitting on that patio with her and talking excitedly about the future. Bursts of conversation lapsed into mutual, comfortable silence. That’s when she told me she was moving to Arizona. I wish I could remember what we said. I never saw her again.
The album is done, and I have more memories to work through and, hey, perfect timing as I walk up to the door.
But I don’t even get to go in. This Satellite is closed on Sundays.
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