Being stuck in a relationship you just can’t seem to find a way out of is enough to drive a person to exhaustion. To make matters worse, it can sometimes seem as though, no matter how poorly they treat you, they are your only option. Regardless of why someone might feel this way, it’s never easy coming to the realization that you are, indeed, trapped. In many cases, external help might be able to help you realize it, but even then, it takes a lot of strength for somebody to pull themselves out of that situation. With “Peak & Trough,” by Talk In Colour, we get to experience the narrative of the person who is trapped while simultaneously trying to convince themselves that they are not. All of this is accompanied by a wonderfully creative instrumental, full of both acoustic and electronic sounds.
Beginning with an electronic sounding instrument, the song is sparse with room to spare for additional instruments which do eventually join in. As I pressed play on this track for the first time, the band Nine Inch Nails immediately came to mind, mainly for their experimentation with clashing both digital and acoustic instruments together. With a smooth vocal performance which features a bit of reverb, the entire song takes on a spacey vibe which remains grounded by the powerful drum strikes keeping the beat moving forward. Throughout the track various sounds are added here and there, along with occasional vocal harmonies, which add to the re-listenability of the song and keep things always interesting.
As I described in the introduction of this review, the song’s lyrical content seems to follow the basic theme of somebody trapped in a relationship. Throughout the song we get glimpses into this person’s mind, with lyrics such as, “Loving this man who only knows how to take / And when he comes it’s never enough / So, all you know is peak and trough.” Comparing her relationship with the phrase “peak and trough” lets us in on how up and down things are. Typically, this phrase is used to indicate the max potency and least potency of a drug in a person’s system. So, it seems that even though she is unhappy in this relationship, she is pulled back in every time it peaks. This is further described with the lyrics, “Pull him into your arms again / Maybe this time you can forget.”
The song builds up towards a peak, with the volume slowly loudening, until everything comes to a close with one lone voice repeating, “Over again, and over again.” With that, the song concludes and leaves a lovely impression upon first listen. While the instrumentation is enough to pull you in the first time around, the lyrics and their story will hold your attention the next few times around. After that, you’ll begin discovering little nuances in the performance that you missed before. All that being said, “Peak & Trough” is a wonderful song which does a great job at keeping the listener’s interest “peaking” throughout every listen.
