Being in a crumbling relationship and realizing your relationship is crumbling are two entirely separate things. Sometimes you’ll realize it on your own, and other times it will take leagues of friends and those who are close to you to help you come to terms with what is happening. With “Glove,” by Cryogeyser, a three-piece from Los Angeles consisting of Shawn Marom, Hunter Martinez and Jeremy McLennan, we see the viewpoint of someone within the crumbling relationship beginning to realize what is happening but not wanting to do anything about it due to them being afraid of leaving their comfort zone. Of course, like with any good story, there is a sense of progression, which we see by the time the song fades.
Starting out with an industrial sounding drumbeat, which repeats itself infinitely, the song reminds me of something akin to David Bowie’s 90s output. That is, until the mellow guitar joins the mix, which is more like something out of a Mac Demarco song from a couple of years ago. The vocals are muddied by effects, which when combined with a laidback delivery, makes them at times difficult to understand. Shawn Marom, the singer of Cryogeyser, sings of a relationship turning sour, where he is unsure how to navigate the various arguments, he finds himself in. He sings, “You say the word again, I’ll start to lose my cool.” Beginning with an example of how short tempered this relationship is, it is immediately clear that things are not right. However, shortly after, he adds, “This place is killing me, taking my sanity / I’ll live inside your love, it fits me like a glove.” Despite being unhappy, he feels as though it is still his comfort zone, and he is unwilling to make the changes in his life that need to happen.
Entering the hook of the song, not much changes on the side of instrumentation, however, the vocal melody has an interesting switch which keeps you hooked as the song transitions. Continuing to describe his inability to navigate his relationship, Marom sings, “I don’t know what this means, do I say I told you so? / You took a part of me, still I won’t let it go.” Fully recognizing the toxicity of his relationship, he still refuses to let go of it. Adding more detail to this, he explains why he won’t let it go, “I’m stuck on what it was, I just thought the usual / You took a part of me, do I say I told you so?” Going back to him not wanting to step outside of his comfort zone, despite its unhealthiness, he reiterates in the last line that he is still unsure. The song takes a slight departure in its bridge, where Marom sings, “Something deeper creeped down / To my knees, I creep now.” Perhaps describing his current mental state, a dark image is painted with his words.
The song then picks its hook back up, almost lifting the sound up from the dark hole it had just fallen into. The lyrics, which are identical to the previous hook, again paint an image of a relationship on the brink of destruction. The song then begins to build up a sort of loop with various harmonies coming in and out repeating the line, “I say I told you so,” perhaps revealing a final moment of decisiveness. As opposed to previous lines in the song, where Marom questioned if he should say it, he is now saying it repeatedly. While simple in its lyrical content, the song achieves what it has set out to accomplish with being an interesting song from a musical standpoint. The solid drumbeat carries the song and remains steady as various effects and guitar chords come and go. The switch-up in the melody of the chorus is my personal favorite aspect of the song, which I believe succeeds in catching my ear.
