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A review by emtees
Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You by Scotto Moore
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
What a weird little book. If it was longer, I probably would have found it annoying or pretentious, but as a novella, I thought it was kind of perfect.
The narrator of this book is a music blogger from Portland, Oregon. This, and the fact that they went to college in Madison, WI, is literally all we know of them - not a name, not a gender. They are clearly meant to function as a blank slate into the story. It’s a technique I usually hate, but for a novella length work it was ok. The narrator is also incredibly pretentious; they spend all their interest on mostly obscure bands and record labels and they know they are more knowledgeable about this subject than anyone, including the reader, and they revel in it. Much of the page count in the early chapters is taken up with the intricacies of the underground music scene and the narrator making sure you know that all the chat groups and websites they have access to are really exclusive (even if the most useful information they end up getting is on… Tumblr.) That too would be annoying except that it very much felt like you were meant to see what an irritating, soulless jerk this person was, someone who had shut themselves away with a single hobby for so long that they barely knew how to relate to anyone outside of it and didn’t really care about anything but music, not even their fellow human beings. The narrator is passionate about music and passionless about everything else, which is what makes the plot of the novella work.
At the start of the story, the narrator hears the first single from an unknown band called Beautiful Remorse - and immediately loses hours of their life. Each subsequent song released has the same effect, driving the narrator and everyone who listens to it - mostly because they are spreading it among the community of obsessive online music fans - into a frenzy of pleasure that trumps anything else they have ever experienced. So when they get a chance to travel to Texas and interview the band, the narrator jumps on it, and finds themselves dragged along on an impromptu national tour as Beautiful Remorse and their lead singer, the enigmatic Airee, cause chaos and destruction everywhere they go. Literal destruction: though it starts off within the realm of out-of-control-concerts, injured fans and riots in the mosh pit, it soon escalates to ritualistic murder and bizarre creatures from beyond this universe crushing venues and eating people. The narrator very quickly figures out that Airee is a lot more than she seems, but by then it is too late for them; enslaved to her music, they are dragged along as Airee’s songs build to a sound that could destroy the world.
The plot is only vaguely coherent. The story is working with science fiction, eldritch horror, possibly also time travel - it’s honestly unclear.I still don’t get how Aireen’s meeting with a man who claimed to have brought her a message from the future jelled with her whole exiled-alien-criminal deal Characters are weirdly frank about some things and tell twisty lies about others, making it difficult to follow what is really going on at times. There’s also a strange sense of scale - Airee’s music is either threatening the world or only noticeable to people in a select few towns - that contributes to the hallucinogenic feel of the book. This is a book that is about vibes more than plot - the love of music, the way listening to it can be a transcendent physical and emotional experience, the longing for something more than the mundane.
The narrator of this book is a music blogger from Portland, Oregon. This, and the fact that they went to college in Madison, WI, is literally all we know of them - not a name, not a gender. They are clearly meant to function as a blank slate into the story. It’s a technique I usually hate, but for a novella length work it was ok. The narrator is also incredibly pretentious; they spend all their interest on mostly obscure bands and record labels and they know they are more knowledgeable about this subject than anyone, including the reader, and they revel in it. Much of the page count in the early chapters is taken up with the intricacies of the underground music scene and the narrator making sure you know that all the chat groups and websites they have access to are really exclusive (even if the most useful information they end up getting is on… Tumblr.) That too would be annoying except that it very much felt like you were meant to see what an irritating, soulless jerk this person was, someone who had shut themselves away with a single hobby for so long that they barely knew how to relate to anyone outside of it and didn’t really care about anything but music, not even their fellow human beings. The narrator is passionate about music and passionless about everything else, which is what makes the plot of the novella work.
At the start of the story, the narrator hears the first single from an unknown band called Beautiful Remorse - and immediately loses hours of their life. Each subsequent song released has the same effect, driving the narrator and everyone who listens to it - mostly because they are spreading it among the community of obsessive online music fans - into a frenzy of pleasure that trumps anything else they have ever experienced. So when they get a chance to travel to Texas and interview the band, the narrator jumps on it, and finds themselves dragged along on an impromptu national tour as Beautiful Remorse and their lead singer, the enigmatic Airee, cause chaos and destruction everywhere they go. Literal destruction: though it starts off within the realm of out-of-control-concerts, injured fans and riots in the mosh pit, it soon escalates to ritualistic murder and bizarre creatures from beyond this universe crushing venues and eating people. The narrator very quickly figures out that Airee is a lot more than she seems, but by then it is too late for them; enslaved to her music, they are dragged along as Airee’s songs build to a sound that could destroy the world.
The plot is only vaguely coherent. The story is working with science fiction, eldritch horror, possibly also time travel - it’s honestly unclear.