Bite the Boxer - Rituals

My last outing with Bite the Boxer was rather fruitful; his single ‘Battleship’ was quite a lively little synthwave jam with just enough heart and soul to make it different from the crowd. However, Bite the Boxer has moved in quite a different direction; rather than continuing on in an indie-pop fashion, his focus is now on synthwave, cyberpunk, ambient, chillwave, lo-fi, and a tad bit of industrial. His latest single ‘Rituals’ is a showcase for this newfound style featuring ominous synths and angelic like hymns. A slow percussive beat adds in some tension to the single and somewhat reminds me of a futuristic neo noir thriller. 

The song is a bit ruined around the one-minute and twenty-second mark when the vocals kick in. I understand that there was an effort to make lo-fi vox, but they come out as significantly feeble in comparison to the beat. When once I was traveling through a decrepit city in neo-noir fashion I was now thrown out of that fantasy and into a smoldering, blistering and painful nothingness. While I think Bite the Boxer has his instrumentals down, he needs to work on his vocals.

Thankfully, the vocals don’t kick around for too long and eventually give way so we get more music than singing, so it’s a net positive. But this isn’t a song I think I’d come back to anytime soon, either.