“You don’t always get a break. You just get better at running.” That’s the line Nathan Bryce hangs his new single on, and honestly, it does more heavy lifting than most bands manage in an entire album.
“Panic Is the Norm” is out now courtesy of Nathan Bryce and Loaded Dice, roping in Australian keys player Clayton Doley for a track that sounds like it was recorded during an actual panic attack. In a good way.
Doley bashes the piano like he’s got a grudge against it, channeling something close to Jerry Lee Lewis at his most unhinged. Pair that with guitars that refuse to sit down and you’ve got a band pulling from 1969 without sounding like a tribute act.
Here’s the twist though. Lyricist Candace Crockett, who’s been writing with Nathan for a while, is a widow raising kids solo, and instead of turning that into a ballad, she went for the laugh. Not a fake laugh either.
There’s no big lesson at the end of this one. No tidy bow. Just three minutes of noise that says some days you keep moving because stopping was never really an option.
Loaded Dice have always been a live band first, songs built to survive a sweaty room and a bad PA system, and this single doesn’t lose that. The stories they’re telling are getting bigger, sure, but nobody’s bothered to clean the thing up, which is exactly the point.
