Gems :: "Medusa"

"I used to feel so free, the way it used to be/Time got away from me," sings Gems vocalist Lindsay Pitts on "Medusa", the title track from the band's forthcoming EP. The irony of this sort of temporal recidivism is obvious: Gems isn't sliding backwards; nothing is escaping them. "Medusa" is the sort of dreamy R&B pop that the independent music community has found so compelling over the last three years, a little snapping down-beat eventually opens its oculus to a sun-soaked, blurry chorus. The lacuna between refrain and verse find a male vocal in rhythmic spoken word as Pitts sails above everything in a piercing head voice. It is the most rich and complex moment of "Medusa", the next movement for a band already masters of their own time.