Painting featured in the artwork:
“The Sound from the Opposite Shore” 対岸の音 (4S)2023
by 卯野 和宏 (Uno Kazuhiro)
At an age where some songs can’t figure out their intent for several minutes, Marston and Baldi offer us a track that wasted barely a breath to get there. Within the runtime of one and a half minutes, this indie pop-rock ballad says exactly what it means with little in the way of flourish; a characteristic that makes it feel right at home in the age of TikTok.
But brevity does not mean the song is emotionally shorthanded.
“Hope in the Darkness” starts from a melancholic place, leaning into the kind of quiet sadness that gives its eventual optimism something to push against, only to grow into something more intimate and restrained and allowing the song to establish its emotional weight without overplaying it.
The contrast in its parts contains the song’s most compelling trait. Instead of ignoring the existence of the darkness, Marston and Baldi place this song on the assumption that the beauty of hope stems precisely from the fact that something must be overcome. The sadness lends the promise some much-needed credibility.
Musically, the song treads between the territory of indie rock and that of indie pop, with atmospheric undercurrents accompanied by enough drive to keep the ballad from getting too morose. While there are plenty of recognizable melodic archetypes here from the melancholic opening to the huge chorus and the sense of resolution, the limited arrangement keeps these structures moving.
And this is where the song’s one-and-a-half-minute runtime becomes more than just a novelty. “Hope in the Darkness” is remarkably easy to consume without feeling disposable. It gets in, establishes its mood, delivers its emotional peak and gets out.
At the same time, the song does not feel like a cynically constructed track designed for short attention spans. The track’s emotional arc feels earned and well-structured, with the narrative of shifting vulnerability and burgeoning hope making it feel like it has an internal journey in spite of its restricted length.
Written and performed by Giorgio Baldi, Matthew Marston and Gabriele Ratti and produced and mixed by Giorgio Baldi, “Hope in the Darkness” succeeds through its uncluttered construction. It doesn’t need epic arrangements or even an extensive runtime to express the important idea that even in dark times, there can be light.
Sometimes you only need a couple of minutes to remind someone that things can get better and if that reminder happens to fit neatly into the TikTok era, all the better.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
