Daily Dose: Pacer, “Rapture”

Music Features Pacer
Daily Dose: Pacer, “Rapture”

Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.

There are a few bands by the name of Pacer, but there’s only one out of Toronto: a frenetic punk three-piece fronted by queer-identifying music video director Shawn Kosmo, with only a few releases to their name.

“Rapture” lives somewhere between post-punk, proto-punk and even power-pop: It’s shit-kicking, anthemic and loud, and, according to a press release, was conceived in the wake of a psychotic episode Kosmo experienced.

The single is described as tapping into the band’s exuberant side to explore the topics of psychosis and mental health, and exuberant it certainly is—beams of fidgety, jagged guitars twist around a heavy bass and nervous percussion to make room for the focal point of the song, Kosmo’s seething, sawtooth vocals.

Kosmo has the right to be loud: His lived experience with mental health disorders has led him to use music as a way to cope with difficult subjects, and per the band’s press release, “If he can’t talk about them, then he’ll sing about them at the top of his lungs.”

The single is accompanied by a twitchy visual directed by Kosmo, who noted in a personal Facebook post that it was “the hardest work I’ve put into a music video in my 7 years of doing this.” Kosmo and eye-shadowed bandmates Dan Pearce and Evan Matthews writhe in basements, sling their instruments in parking lots, vomit up paint and toy around with lightbulbs in what appears to be one big hallucinatory, manic stupor.

“Rapture” follows the band’s previous single release “Bangers” and double-sided single “Piledriver/Lose.” You can listen to the two tracks on the band’s Bandcamp page and check out their new music video below.

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