Mica

"Mica" operates at an angle to the rest of Mission of Burma's output — there is a certain translucence to it, a quality suggested even by its title. The guitar work here is less abrasive than on the band's harder material, carrying a ringing, mineral clarity that gives the track an almost luminous quality in its quieter passages. The song moves through emotional states with unusual fluidity, shifting from a kind of earnest openness into something more fraught without announcing the transition. Conley's melodic sense is at the fore, his voice used more tenderly here, the delivery less declarative and more searching. The bass provides a warm, grounded counterweight that keeps the song from floating entirely into abstraction. There's a quality of scrutiny in the lyrics — a close examination of something or someone, the attempt to hold a thing up to the light and understand it before it changes. The production carries the live electricity that characterized the band's recordings, but channeled into something more intimate than their anthemic material. This is Mission of Burma at their most approachable without being any less serious. It's a song that rewards attention rather than demanding it, suited to the focused kind of listening you do when you're alone and you actually want to hear something rather than just have noise fill a room.