Fort Worth’s War Party | Photo shot by Vishal Malhotra and edited by Stephanie Benjamin
By David Fletcher
When War Party announced that they would be calling it quits before their Fortress Festival performance, they knew that it was going to be a slow good-bye.
The time has come, however, for them to take their final bow, but not before dropping one last track and playing one last show.
And what a track it is!
“‘Negative Consumer’ is a song largely influenced by the hardcore punk music I listened to as a teenager, but still has flavors of 60s psychedelia,” singer and guitarist Cameron Smith says.
Coming in at two minutes long, “Negative Consumer” is a song in two bursts: the first part, a loping tear-down of commercialism and political game-playing; the second, a ripping assault on the people who make it all possible — ourselves.
“The lyrics [see below] are confrontational and concerned with issues like manufactured outrage and consumer indifference in the face of daily atrocities,” Smith explains, “corporate greed, systemic racism, class war, mass violence, climate change and an array of other social and psychological diseases, symptomatic of late-stage capitalism.”
It would be going too far to say that the song is War Party’s way of raising their middle finger to society before exiting the stage, but they are definitely signing off with a shake of their heads.
“It wasn’t the intention when writing or recording the song,” Smith says of the song’s f-you attitude. “It just sort of wound up tying things up nicely. This one goes out to all the unhappy shoppers out there —unsatisfied customers in the supermarket of social decay.”
The song is available today on all streaming platforms, and it will be featured on Dreamy Life Records Group Therapy vol. 5 compilation tape available for purchase on bandcamp or at the Group Therapy vol. 5 Release Fest at Main at South Side (M.A.S.S.) on October 12.
The festival at M.A.S.S. will feature War Party’s final, headlining performance before its members lovingly disband and move on to other projects.
An all-day event, the release festival will also host other artists on Dreamy Life Records including BULLS, Ting Tang Tina, Sealion and Johndavid Bartlett & Acid Carousel on indoor and outdoor stages alongside nine local visual artists.
While the occasional one-off show is not completely out of the question in the future of War Party, it remains uncertain when or if it will actually happen.
What is certain, however, is that War Party is leaving a rich catalogue of music behind them, and “Negative Consumer” makes an emphatic exclamation point at the end of their sentence.
Lyrics:
Cancel the future
Is this world even worth it?
The market is flooding
With the blood of our children
Manufacturing outrage
Such a delicate balance
While they fit you for a cage
Cause you fit the color palette
Sign up
And agree to these terms and conditions
Would you like to proceed to check-out?
Wait
Are you sure there isn’t something you’re missing?
Customers who viewed this item also like to
Cover their bases
Campaign for nice guy
Sing along Swan song
Waste a whole life time
Humility trophies
Casual heroes
Rounded off edges
Checks with multiple zeroes
Gas up on your lunch break
Hottest deals of the summer
Sitcom values and mistakes
“‘Genocide?’ What a bummer”
Modern life is a hell ride
Taking up all of my time
Reading nothing but headlines
Oh but my day was just fine
If you wanna blame someone
Then we can blame ourselves
Look around the world
You’ll find there is nobody else
