For reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I have spent a lot of time walking up and down the rarely-used railroad tracks that run as the dividing line between the nearly inseparable towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, NC. And Fire Mountain’s May release All Dies Down has been one of my most constant companions on that uneven walk; the multi-layered guitars and keyboards of lead track “Be Your Eyes” is now familiar to me as balancing from one railroad tie to another.
The song shines with the heat shimmer of asphalt, the kind of baked-in Southern heat that I’m so fond of — or I wouldn’t keep living here, y’all can keep winter — the kind of heat that radiates up off the rocks between those battered railroad ties.
The chorus cries please don’t let this pain be your eyes, and I’m smitten with that line. Escape however you can, down the railroad track or a highway wet with humidity, but escape it. That’s what it says to me.
You can grab All Dies Down over at This Is American Music, and I recommend that you do.