It is one thing to acknowledge the omnipresent crises facing us these days; it’s another to twist that dread into incisive, poetic and alluring music. Alt-rock songwriter Jon Stancer’s new record, “Are We Not Here For Fun?”, addresses our modern challenges – rising fascism, addictive technologies, mental health crises – through immersive arrangements, overflowing with electronic textures and engaging Brit-pop hooks. With the haze of the pandemic fading away, Stancer found himself writing compulsively, crafting songs that were deeply personal or unapologetically political – and often both at once. The unflinchingly raw songs that became AWNHFF? detail dark vignettes, from the depiction of an infamous TikTok prankster, angrily confronted by those whose lives he’s harmed for the sake of online attention, to an overly sensitive “hitman for hire”, to an impressionistic snapshot of lovelorn cyber soldiers in a war-torn future. These world-building songs are balanced with deeply intimate sketches. Songs like “Ricochet” and “2am” describe, in vivid detail, the deterioration of relationships, with these larger societal issues looming around the corner. Jon Stancer’s music manages to stare into the darkness while refracting light, grounded in a yearning for us to do better, connect more deeply, and fix what is broken.
