Vince Leigh’s Live Review: Change Your Mind by Neo Stereo
Mark Cassius isn’t here to break the mould. He’s here to hold it up to the light, tilt it this way and that, and ask why we’re all so obsessed with what we see in the first place. Change Your Mind appears like a weary traveller — utilising a laid-back, late-night groove that sits somewhere between a sigh and a shrug, its easy strum and understated rhythm all the more disarming for how much they hide. Cassius has been at this for over twenty-five years, and the man knows how to get to the point without losing his cool. There’s a calm authority in the way he sings “Excuse me while I change my mind,” as if he’s been mulling it over for hours and finally decided to let it go. It’s a line that could be a throwaway, but it’s not. It’s a gentle nudge, a reminder that you’re allowed to pivot, that the world keeps moving whether you change or not. The track floats along on a groove that feels easy but is actually anything but.
The drums shuffle just enough to keep you guessing, the chords dip and sway like someone pacing the room, and the harmonies swell like a friendly ghost passing through. And then there’s the bridge — that descending chord change that pulls you in deeper, the melody expanding and contracting like a lung filling with air. It’s a nice touch, a moment that says, Hey, don’t drift off just yet. We’re still here. But it’s the chorus that really lands, the refrain repeating like a mantra you forgot you already knew: “Change your looks, change your smile / I don’t know and I wonder why.” There’s a kind of tenderness to the delivery, a sense that Cassius isn’t preaching or posturing, just mulling it over, trying to figure out what we’re all so damn concerned with in the first place. Cassius isn’t reinventing the wheel here, and that’s the point. And there’s something to be said for that — for making music that asks you to slow down, to sit with yourself for a while, to change your mind without feeling like the world is going to end if you do. Because the world keeps turning, and the best songs are the ones that don’t pretend to have it all figured out.
