Erik Rabasca Has A New Release

Erik Rabasca has a guitar and a few things he would like to get off his chest. Quite a few, actually. “Oh Domination!” starts with money and manufactured hatred, works through war and displacement, and finishes by wishing a thoroughly unpleasant afterlife on the people responsible. Nobody is getting a thank-you in the liner notes.

The song itself is simple: acoustic guitar, voice and a chorus that keeps coming back to the same unhappy conclusion. Rabasca recorded the lead vocal and guitar together in one take without a click, then added a second acoustic. It’s a sensible setup for material this direct. There’s already enough happening in the words without asking a string section to weigh in.

What gives the writing some bite is its interest in who benefits from the mess. Rabasca connects the anger in the headlines with the arguments people carry into everyday life. Someone makes money, everyone else gets another reason to hate their neighbors, and tomorrow the whole thing starts again. His observation about people who see their truth clearly but miss the larger picture reaches beyond the usual villains. Most of us have probably earned a small supporting role there.

The strongest passages ask straightforward questions about borders, security and the people left homeless or dead in their name. Those questions carry more weight than some of the broader language about malice and ignorance. Rabasca doesn’t always need the extra emphasis. The situation is already doing plenty of shouting.

By the final verse, though, restraint has left the building. He wants the people responsible to suffer, and he says so without leaving much room for interpretation. It’s an ugly thought, delivered as an ugly thought.

That bluntness gives “Oh Domination!” its personality. Rabasca sounds fed up with finding polite ways to describe appalling things. The modest folk setting keeps his complaint clear, while the refrain gives all that frustration somewhere to land. It’s a small song with an extremely long list of grievances.