The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known it your whole life. You’ll be tapping your steering wheel to it before the first minute is out.
Then you start to actually listen.
Suddenly, the sunshine flickers. This isn’t about open roads and carefree days; it’s about the suffocating finality of a fixed course. Jacob sings of surrendering versus fighting, of facing judgment in the stark morning light with a spent tank and a stubborn ego. The tension is palpable. The music shouts “go!” while the words murmur “what’s the point?” For some reason, it brings to mind the strange, brittle texture of spun sugar sculptures—beautiful, bright, and one wrong move from collapsing into a glittering heap. It’s the sound of holding something impossibly fragile with an unshakeable grip.
Yet, this isn’t a funeral dirge in disguise. Hope, that stubborn little weed, pushes through every crack in the anxiety. Knowing this is the work of a single musician forging every sound makes the triumph feel more personal. The very existence of this impossibly catchy song feels like the answer to its own lyrical dilemma—an act of defiant creation against the pull of powerlessness.
It’s a shot of pure sonic joy that leaves you chewing on an odd question: are you dancing to outrun the anxiety, or is the dance itself the act of surrender the song is wrestling with?
