Detroit's Red Pill has a gift for the type of simple, honest everyday truth that made Raymond Carver famous. Perhaps Bukowski, Carver, and Red Pill's own penchant for one too many drinks plays a part, but whatever it is, their unflinching look at our contemporary American lives is what draws us in. They bask in the ordinary and glow when describing the mundane. Red Pill's sophomore solo project ‘Instinctive Drowning’ delves even deeper into the reservoir of his memory and the dangerous riptide of his future.
The record's title ‘Instinctive Drowning’ refers to the phenomenon where when one is drowning it actually appears as if they are calm – not thrashing as we've been led by film and television to imagine. Often our lives are the same way, those of us on the cusp, drowning and drawn too deep by the current of life, look calm and normal – no one notices until we disappear under the dark waters that surround us. The deeply personal narrative starts with Pill in the hospital in 2013 when doctors thought he had brain cancer and may be dying. It turned out he had viral meningitis – common to drunks – and only one doctor had the balls to tell him to stop drinking. Red Pill told himself he was going to stop drinking but after two weeks of sickness, he went to the liquor store again and hasn't stopped. The story deepens as Red Pill reveals that his mom died from alcoholism when he was 19 in the most gut wrenching song you'll ever listen to as your eyes fill with tears knowing there is too much truth.