Opening the EP “Running with Scissors”, by Dark Soul Safari, is almost like opening a book, which already comes with a soundtrack. The EP has 4 tracks that revolve around a humanity on the brink of collapse. And all this with a cult and avant-garde film sound.
The first track, “That’s How I Roll”, deals with a road rage incident and focuses on the protagonist’s psychology. For that, the music is sober, with a constant guitar and almost monotonous verses that represent someone with a lot of cold blood.
“Running with Scissors” is the title track and expresses a haunting lament for the (future) collapse of humanity after climate change and political failure.
This banner is filled with ironic messages like the Trump campaign slogan “Make America great again”. The sound is again slow, but with a big twist at the end, when it picks up speed and gets much more agitated.
The third track, “Jim the Priest”, tells of a quack evangelical preacher who exploits his followers for money and “special favors”.
The song is very themed and resembles gospel praise songs with its verses up high and clapping in the chorus.
The last track, “Still Chasing Windmills”, was inspired by the novel “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes. In this song, an elderly man reflects on his history of misadventures but refuses to give up hope.
The sound reminds a bit of folk songs that focus on storytelling and automatically transports us to epic films with great journeys.
Overall, Dark Soul Safari’s “Running with Scissors” is musically simple to highlight the vocals, but makes a wise choice of genres that help in the mission of telling stories and bringing an epic feeling to the listener.