It has a subdued strength to it, in Luxury Apartments by Courtesy Car, that refuses to leave even after the song is over. The British alt-rock group creates a sound canvas that is simultaneously highly personal and unsettlingly universal: a dreary vortex of gloomy vocals and dark guitar melodies that remind of The Neighbourhood at their gloomier, but with an ineffable, mysterious touch that is all their own.
The song is not a song, it is a reflection of the contemporary state. Superficially, it struggles with the confusing uniformity of gentrified zones the cold, faceless "luxury apartments" that redesign both cities and souls. However, look a little deeper, and it is something even weightier: the reflection on the contradiction between the outer motion and inner displacement. Are we becoming displaced, or are we simply faced with the emptiness that we always possessed?
The best thing about Luxury Apartments is its restraint. It has no grandstanding; no artificial catharsis; simply a steady, steadily increasing intensity that finally becomes impossible to overlook. The arrangement is minimal but engulfing, allowing the existential heft of the lyrics to have some air. Towards the climax of the track, all the emotions build up to one thing that is devastatingly quiet.
Courtesy Car does not provide simple answers and that is the point. It is music of the transitional places: those times when you are not quite sure where you fit in. A mesmerizing jewel to anyone who ever felt lost in their own life.
