- The Equiknoxx vocalist delivers a dancehall anthem with sneaky subtleties.
- "Ring The Alarm" is both a warning and a rebuke to the proverbial gunman. Shanique Marie's bars and Gavsborg's production deliver the message emphatically, largely swerving the unorthodox tendencies of the DDS records that made the greater Equiknoxx crew darlings in experimental dance music circles. But those LPs were largely instrumental and drew their images with sound. Marie’s delivery and lyrics are the stars here, with the production playing a supportive role.
From the first verse Marie comes off like a big sister mercilessly dunking on a little brother. But she is in fact addressing "everyone" as she needles the wannabes, rattling off an encyclopaedic list of weapons ("Everyone wanna screw with .22 / Everyone wanna roll with .44") that reduces the gun toter from proud individual to face in a crowd.
The second verse repeats the same metre as the first but piles up similes like Jenga. Marie points to the absurdity of the gunman's posture by comparing them to proverbial Hollywood hard men ("Don't give a damn like Van Damme") before dismissing them with "take a walk like Jill Scott." On paper, the first and second verses seem basic but their simplicity is an effective device that reflects the simple mind of the gunman.
The flow breaks out of this system in the third verse. The metre weaves around the downbeat with a fluidity that contrasts with the declamatory style driving the song's first two thirds. "Muzzle flash!" is followed by a dramatic pause, mirroring the second of eerie stillness after a gunshot. Marie then locates the flash at "1000 feet," placing us into the scene with her, before urging us to flee down "1000 streets, up 1000 peaks," giving the flight from danger a depressingly epic scale.
Gavsborg's production compliments Marie’s imagery in a few ways. It centres on a thumb piano that combines dread with a comical jerkiness and homespun quality, mirroring the lowly but still dangerous figure of Marie's gunman. Colouring the narrative with sound continues throughout: fog horns blare as Marie rings the alarm in the choruses; percussion flares like gunshots around reload clicks in the verses; and after Marie's psychedelic third verse, a spoken word sample makes crystal clear what the gunman should take away: "Take a seat in the race of life before you get eaten by the Komodo dragons lurking in the dens of Babylon."
Tracklist01. Ring The Alarm