Alt J – Dissolve Me (song review)

This song is light – in the cold, through the clouds, reflected off of snow – but ideally in the summer, and always near water. Or maybe it’s slipping into the warm ocean and dissolving into a thin film that lingers on the surface before a gentle tide floats it out to sea.

It’s the light you squint through just to see it play on the water, or looking over your sunglasses at a girl you take in unfiltered; you don’t want the rush dulled or her color muted, just your pulse racing within the stillness of taking in every detail.

Whether or not “Dissolve Me” is a reference to drug use, as the first two lines of the song would imply, is subject to interpretation. Dissolving, as in a tab of acid or ecstasy on your tongue or the obliteration of the self, is the action. It’s an action better described as a chemical reaction taking place in the song and between two people.

I’m not certain if the dissolving refers to a couple separating or distinct personalities dissolving into one another. The action, for better or worse, is also irreversible and the narrator is tired of fighting it, returning always to the calming effect her voice has on him because it reminds him of the sea.
A terrific song to walk the length of the Long Island City Pier to on a Sunday afternoon.
Enjoy.