It takes a special kind of talent to equate a doomed love affair with the dropout of an electronic signal. And that’s exactly what Baltimore, MD’s own Carbonstone are up to on their current single, the splintering relationship post-mortem “White Noise.” Like the poetic equivalent of a lightning round on The $100,000 Pyramid, the song sits us down and whisks us through a harrowing rundown of the category “Things That Break Up.” The top two answers? A failing radio transmission and a once-happy human coupling that’s likewise about to be lost forever.
Drawing from the vast emotional warehouse you’d expect of a band that describes their sound as “industrial alternative metal,” the song merges hard-hitting guitars with catchy vocal hooks and sweeping synths in a way that wrings the full emotional potential out of nu-metal’s melodic heaviness and the harsh alienation of electronica. His voice dripping with the kind of heart-on-sleeve lamentation this music was made for, lead singer/guitarist Corey James mourns a vanishing love connection that’s dissolving into static as morning turns to daybreak.
