Single File’s ‘Common Struggles’ provides simple music and addictive lyrics

    On Tuesday, April 21 the band Single File, along with Danger Radio, opened for the Plain White T’s at USI’s Physical Activies Center.

    Their debut album “Common Struggles” dropped April 7 and is worth checking out if you’re into alternative rock.

    While the band is nothing fresh or mind blowing, Single File manages to be one of those music groups that can catch your attention without fancy guitar riffs or complex drum beats. 

    The album opens with the song “Mannequin Loveseat.” Lyrics like “I’m sad about girls/ No, I’m sad about pretty things out of reach/ I’ll stay home with my mannequin loveseat” quickly pound themselves into a music listener’s head.

    While many Single File fans may believe it’s about love, lead singer Sloan Anderson says it’s about being lonely.

    “Girlfriends” is an addictive song with the lines “All  my girlfriends are breaking up with me/ And all my good friends? Yeah, they’re selling me out. So what if I’m a burnout, baby, you don’t gotta celebrate it.” The song has a simple, but pleasing beat to it that attracted the most attention at the concert.

     “Airports” starts off slow and then picks up speed as Anderson’s vocal skills are displayed on the track that goes back and forth between two tempos.

    The line “please destroy the letters you saved with the flowers I sent to you, pressed between pages”  is a strong point of the song.

    The track “Pizzagirl” and the fast paced  music that it produces may seem like a song that’s meant to be humorous, but the song describes “pizzagirl” calling just to say she’s leaving the persona.

    “Zombies Ate My Neighbors ” is probably the band’s most popular song with the largest number of hits on MySpace.       

 The lyrics, “Call the neighbor kids with trash can lids and buckets on their heads/ Cause I’m telling you I’m gonna need a little help tonight,” are energetic.

    The only song that is slightly edgy on their album is “Dear Meghan.” It’s more bass driven than anything else in the rhythm upbeat soundtrack, which won’t appease those seeking hard, heavy rock.

    While Single File isn’t a band that plays complicated music, it is still entertaining.

    The band wanted to be completely satisfied with the recording of their first album, so they took a break in the middle of recording to tour and work on additional songs.

     “We just kind of rushed into it. We didn’t think we were rushing into it, but we signed a record deal and they were like ‘let’s go into the studio’ and we were like ‘we’re not ready,’” Anderson said during an interview with Student Life editor Lana Kunz.

    Several songs from the first recording were reworked and made it onto the final album.
     “We hit reset on everything and it fell into place,” Anderson said.