“The Man Who Killed The World” is an extremely confident title. It suggests one spectacularly bad person, possibly wearing a cape and standing on top of a volcano. Electrobuddha’s song, thankfully, is a little more complicated than that.
The track, which first surfaced in 2016 and was given a remixed 2026 version, punishes war, hunger, inequality and destruction to nature. There is a lot to pack into a single tune, but McCaffer, the Scottish artist who makes music as Electrobuddha, does not seem to be lecturing; rather, there’s a progressively more uncomfortable feel of psychedelic rock to it.
The first sentence sets the scene right away: “Just look around you, satellites keep falling from the sky. It mystified you. Seems to me we are running out of time.”
Hitting you over the head?
Not so much. Hit you like a breath of fresh air? Yes.
There is enough in the music itself to make it worthy of replay. A jagged, broken drumbeat makes the first heartbeat of the track, a wobbling bass line pulls the record into its mood, then guitars, synths and strings gather around it, attempting to make the record sound as crowded as possible. And yet, it doesn’t fall apart.
That is mostly because the beat is still king. The drums are still beating relentlessly, with the bass bordering on tangible, the strings helping to build up the tension, the electronic sounds becoming strangely unnerving, while the vocal by McCaffer is right in the eye of the storm.
The remix also has an advantage in that its subject matter has never exactly fallen out of date. If anything, the issues raised by the lyrics have acquired the unwelcome attribute of a perma-current zeitgeist. The world still has war. Still has hunger. Still has inequality. And still objects to any plan that doesn’t benefit billionaires. Anyways.
McCaffer’s DIY methodology suits the genre’s can-be-chaotic subject material. Recording from his own home studio, he creates the track with samples, guitars, drums, strings and his own vocals. The video for the song, by McCaffer himself, is also painstakingly edited and synchronized; adding to the sense that this artist is assembling all of this himself.
“The Man Who Killed The World” is not subtle, and it doesn’t have to be. Its most effective passages are when the protest message and music fuse, when the percussion endures, when the bass continues its relentless drive, and when the songwriting becomes taut.
For “eco rock,” Electrobuddha has a simple message: get into a panic, but keep moving.
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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.
