I Panic “Can't Imagine”

“Can’t Imagine” sees sadness flowing through a Moonight-sequel piano soundscape, drawing a poetic touch of brokenness and sensuous fragility closer to its wrenching yet poised expression. Like feathers scattered around the floor, sadness and loneliness is the forever theme but not in the way that’s unbreathable. Written about a relationship reaching an inevitable end, the haunting, therapeutic single speaks of sorrow and pain while transforming classic aesthetic through genuine lyricism.

I Panic describes his creative process as an authentic experience. Originally imagined as a person therapy session with his instrument, he didn’t plan on releasing the song to the public, not until the opening line “can’t imagine that my next song won’t be about you” breaks through the sonic backdrop. Coiled in bent, twisted tones, “Can’t Imagine” bears a darker undertone. As if the world has lost its colour, turning into a grayish black and white, his piano playing evokes vivid imageries that can’t help but carrying the same weight of grief and loss.

What’s truly amazing is the drastic contrast “Can’t Imagine” experiments in its climatic chorus, reaching the extreme to its very edge until everything is fuzzy and torn yet not fully broken in half. The chorus evokes so much tension and energy. Paired with high distortion and overdrive and I Panic’s wrenching vocals, this explosion is both bloody and crude. Vulnerability and pain in its rawest form with all the sensitive nerves and wounds exposed, no holding back. It’s such a gorgeous contrast, so determined, daring and unapologetic.

When the storm has passed, what would it left? Like a feather drifting down in the wind, light piano sheds a gentle brightness in melancholia. Black and white tipping the scale of its sonic palette. Impressionistic yet nostalgia.