Originally known as Operation Guillotine, a metal-core band rechristened PARIS when their musical direction changed to a synth/electro-pop sound, and finally to the current PVRIS (same pronunciation) due to copyright issues. The band made up of vocalist Lynn Gunn, guitarist Alex Babinski, and bassist/keyboardist Brian MacDonald, self-describes themselves on Spotify as, “… pull(ing) together the harrowing, the surreal, and the urgently personal with shades of Victorian wonder and supernatural awe.“

“It’s hard to be what you need through a static screen.
Been trying to speak for weeks and weeks.
Open my mouth,
All that comes out is white noise and incomprehensible sounds,
And all you ever do is turn me down.”

There was a time when programs ended for the day without infomercials, a time after the Native American crying on a hill over a littered landscape, or following the rainbow-colored-bar-graph with its single screeching note. A time of otherwise non-televised vision resulting in a screen of white/black static buzzing incessantly. This when the channel you were viewing on your TV was incommunicado, or perhaps just believed to be so…

“I’m watching.
I’m waiting.
I’m aching.
Suffocating.
I’m breathing.
I’m screaching.
Can you hear me?
I’m screaming for you.”

Could this be PVRIS’s premise to this track? That lying somewhere between silence and meaning is the skeletal-visceral twilight zone known as ‘white noise’. A ghostly apparition from the other side, unable to communicate except through an otherwise unused video transmission? Spiritual screeching through a screen-erupting monochromatic-chaos?

“Sick of the lack of signal.
Sick of the lack of touch.
Sick of the static voice.
It’s not enough, it’s not enough.
Baby, it’s hard to be just what you need when all I speak is static screams.
Can you hear me?“

Or perhaps a supernatural analogy of a reality where one is unloved, unheard, or otherwise ignored. A virtual-solitary-confinement-chamber reducing life-affirming communication to the simple search of any significance, anyone’s notice, an upending of unbearable loneliness. All screaming, then silence.

An unplugged TV and darkness imbues.

PVRIS’s music can be bought here and from Apple here, listened to on Spotify here, and followed on Facebook here