Three Track Week #22: Still Going
- Anne
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
How Music Captures the Strange Art of Carrying On
Not every form of perseverance looks admirable. Sometimes it means repeating the same mistake, dragging yourself through exhaustion or trying to hold onto meaning in situations that no longer make much sense. This week Three Track Week #22, Kelsey Olivia, Rocketsuit Rogue and Wax Minds capture three very different versions of what it means to keep going anyway.
Listen to this week’s Three Track Week #22 selection.
This week’s tracks are available in our playlist INDIENOXZINE | Selections, updated weekly on Spotify.
Kelsey Olivia – When Communication Fails But The Pattern Remains
On "I’ll Come Over", Cleveland indie-pop artist Kelsey Olivia captures one of the defining contradictions of modern dating culture: emotional honesty often arrives only once clarity has already disappeared. Built around the repeated cycle of drunk calls, blurred memories and unresolved attraction, the song transforms romantic confusion into something bright, danceable and deceptively effortless.
Sound / Mood
"I’ll Come Over" glows with the polished energy of late-night summer pop. Its glossy production, playful vocal delivery and buoyant melodic hooks create the sense of a song designed for movement, yet beneath that shimmer sits a much less stable emotional reality. Olivia balances flirtation with vulnerability, turning miscommunication and longing into something infectious rather than confessional. The result feels weightless on the surface while quietly circling the same unresolved tension over and over again.
Why This Matters
Contemporary dating culture is often defined less by commitment than by ambiguity. Relationships increasingly unfold through half-statements, mixed signals and emotional arrangements that remain deliberately undefined until they become impossible to sustain. "I’ll Come Over" captures the strange emotional logic of that environment. The song is not simply about wanting someone. It is about the repetition of a pattern in which both people keep returning to one another despite knowing that communication only seems possible once honesty has already been compromised. In this sense, Olivia’s single belongs to a growing body of pop music concerned with the instability of modern intimacy. Rather than treating confusion as an obstacle on the way to clarity, these songs recognise it as a condition in its own right. The emotional loop becomes the story. What makes "I’ll Come Over" especially effective is that it refuses to separate that uncertainty from pleasure. The song understands that dysfunctional patterns can still feel exciting, desirable and difficult to leave behind.
Context
Produced by Ben Schigel and mastered by Will Quinnell at Sterling Sound, "I’ll Come Over" continues Olivia’s ability to turn personal relationship experiences into expansive alt-pop narratives. Drawing from the language of situationships and after-hours confession, the single positions her within a current wave of pop artists exploring how emotional ambiguity has become one of the defining experiences of contemporary romance.
Rocketsuit Rogue – Hope As A Choice In Uncertain Times
Apocalyptic imagery usually magnifies fear. On "The Best Last Day on Earth", Rocketsuit Rogue use it to clarify what matters. The new project from former Zebrahead frontman Matty Lewis frames human connection against a backdrop of collapse, uncertainty and science-fiction spectacle, but the song’s emotional centre is surprisingly grounded. Rather than asking how to escape disaster, it asks how to remain present while it unfolds.
Sound / Mood
Driven by loud guitars, soaring hooks and a huge melodic chorus, "The Best Last Day on Earth" channels the widescreen energy of classic punk-pop while leaning into something more cinematic and reflective. There is urgency in the arrangement, but not panic. Instead, the track feels expansive and oddly reassuring, using speed and scale to heighten a sense of gratitude rather than dread. It is a song about the end of the world that sounds less catastrophic than strangely alive.
Why This Matters
Popular music has always used disaster as metaphor, but its meaning shifts depending on the cultural moment. In periods marked by political instability, climate anxiety and a constant sense of impending crisis, apocalyptic language no longer feels entirely fictional. What makes Rocketsuit Rogue interesting is that they do not use that imagery to dramatize hopelessness. Instead, "The Best Last Day on Earth" reduces life to its essentials. If the future cannot be guaranteed, what remains worth holding onto? Lewis answers with a deliberately simple proposition: the people around us, the moment we are in, and the choice to value connection over fear. That may sound modest, but it cuts against a broader culture of catastrophe in which anxiety is often amplified rather than processed. The song suggests that resilience does not always require a grand solution. Sometimes it begins with refusing to let uncertainty erase the value of the present.
Context
Rocketsuit Rogue marks Lewis’ return to songwriting after stepping away from Zebrahead in 2021. Produced by Cameron Webb, the forthcoming debut album "Hello, Apocalypse!" (arrives August 21, 2026) uses 1950s sci-fi imagery and end-of-the-world themes as a framework for songs about perseverance, meaning and shared experience. "The Best Last Day on Earth" captures that concept at its clearest, turning apocalypse into a backdrop for emotional honesty rather than spectacle alone.
Wax Minds – Refusing The Myth Of Productive Exhaustion
Few things are less glamorous than forcing yourself to continue when you have no desire to keep going. Wax Minds take that feeling and turn it into a rallying cry. With "Lead-Limbed Losers’ Anthem", the Bremen garage-punk band deliver what they describe as an anti-sport anthem, but the song’s appeal extends far beyond exercise. At its core, it is a track about physical depletion, self-disgust and the absurd pressure to keep performing functionality even when your body and mind are resisting every part of it.
Sound / Mood
"Lead-Limbed Losers’ Anthem" moves with the wiry aggression and scrappy momentum that define Wax Minds’ version of garage punk. Distorted riffs, impatient rhythms and a general sense of near-collapse make the track feel less like a motivational anthem than a refusal of one. It is fast, loud and chaotic in a way that mirrors the emotional state it describes: not triumph over exhaustion, but irritation at being expected to push through it.
Why This Matters
Much of contemporary culture is built around the glorification of productivity. Fatigue is treated as a problem to optimise away, discomfort becomes something to conquer, and movement itself is framed as moral virtue. In that context, a song like "Lead-Limbed Losers’ Anthem" feels unexpectedly subversive. Wax Minds are not interested in self-improvement or discipline. They are interested in the uglier reality beneath those ideals: the resentment, inertia and self-loathing that often accompany the demand to keep going anyway. What makes the song resonate beyond its anti-sport premise is that it recognises exhaustion as more than a temporary inconvenience. It becomes a social condition, one tied to pressure, performance and the constant expectation that people remain functional regardless of how depleted they feel. Rather than offering catharsis through victory, Wax Minds offer something rarer: solidarity through refusal. The song does not solve exhaustion. It simply screams back at it.
Context
"Lead-Limbed Losers’ Anthem" is the second single from Wax Minds’ forthcoming album "Funatic Asylum", a 10-track garage-punk release shaped by lo-fi chaos, nervous hooks and a sense of controlled collapse. Inspired in part by a conversation about being listened to while exercising, the track reframes physical activity as a site of absurdity rather than discipline. In doing so, it becomes one of the record’s clearest statements of intent: restless, antagonistic and uninterested in pretending that endurance is always admirable.
Across these three tracks, perseverance appears in forms that are far less heroic than popular culture usually prefers. Kelsey Olivia captures romantic repetition, Rocketsuit Rogue search for connection in uncertain times, and Wax Minds turn exhaustion into resistance. What connects them is the recognition that carrying on is often messy, compromised and harder to romanticize than we might like.
Further perspectives are available in our Artist Features, Cultural Essays and The Thing About Us, each situating music within broader cultural and creative contexts.
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