By Paola Mancini
The first 14 seconds of this song had me feeling like I had just stepped into an American 90s feel good movie; the likes of “10 Things I Hate About You” or “Clueless”. Probably not the comparison Garlands are dreaming of ideally, but those first 14 seconds made me feel nostalgic about summer and being young and carefree.
The guitar riff first kicks in to create an oxymoronic effect. The soft tones of the lyrics and the poppy surf music contrast, creating an almost “dirty” effect from the guitar. A direct contrast to the mellow beginning, which reminds us that we are still listening to pop punk music after all…
Similar to the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man”, the vocals are dampened by an echo effect, making it sound like you’re listening to your neighbour’s music through your the wall of your flat. This ties in with breaking up that clean, poppy tone and divulges into a lazy guitar sound, similar to “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” by Nirvana.
In keeping with the contrasting theme of the music; the main lyrics in the chorus of this song “Thank God he kissed it, the Devil missed it” also work as a direct oxymoron to each other. I guess we’re all different, but my understanding of the the music, together with these lyrics, is symbolic for being good, and trying not to be bad. It reminded me a lot of the Charles Manson quote: “if you look up at me you see God, if you look down at me you see the Devil and if you look at me eye to eye you see yourself”. This, to my understanding, is trying to break down what essentially all humans are like; we may all be different physically, mentally, socially, economically etc etc, but in the end we all have good in us and evil in us in the same way.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, there doesn’t seem to be much talk of gigging in the near future of 2020, but Garlands have decided to grace us with news singles every month during lockdown.
Download or listen to “Where Things Belong” single on Apple Music & other social platforms below:
Spotify-https://open.spotify.com/track/0Ol65YI7KTJLLHMsYATszg?si=gWKviQnYTfOfD1RXt5VzjQ&nd=1
Facebook- https://m.facebook.com/pg/GARLANDSGLASGOW/about/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/garlands_?lang=en
The Music Files 
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