Siichaq, The Righteous Sword
Our world somehow continues to spin despite all the shit that goes on in it. The Righteous Sword by Atlanta musician Kennie Mason, who works under her Inuit name Siichaq, runs on this fact. It’s a ruminative record about how her personal experience shifts between being at odds with and being deeply connected to society at large. She bounces around between themes and sounds in a way that mimics the landscape of chaos and haze that The Righteous Sword captures. But in Mason’s words regarding the album, “who doesn’t love a little chaos?”
We immediately know we’re in for it when opener “Mtswcb” kicks up. It sounds at first like something that might’ve fit in on Wednesday’s Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘em Up before shifting halfway through into Molchat Doma territory, then finally glitching to a stop. Its dreary lyricism and distinctive combination of influences are the perfect calibrators for what to expect on The Righteous Sword. Mason is admirably unafraid of potential clashing on this record, unabashedly combining genres across and within its tracks.
Lead single “Cattle Driver” blares to a start next. It opens like something you might hear from fellow Georgia band Coma Therapy’s gothic darkwave catalog, but Mason’s sensitive vocals make the sound all her own. The song is a far cry from most of what we heard on her last album, Catcher, sharing a lot more sonic DNA with her debut, My Dog Ate My Patriotism. It’s a track about existentialism in the digital age and the impossible crossroads it leaves you at when it comes to making art and still feeling human. “Less human, more concept. Less human, more content,” Mason drones at the end like a robot repeating its commands. Luckily, the existence of this song in and of itself acts in resistance to the fears it expresses.
“Idle” combines a melody that would’ve fit comfortably on Catcher with a retro, clubby 808. It’s about a chronic inability to move on, giving off a sense of deadlock that permeates many of the lyrics on the record. “Nothing If Not” then grapples with the very idea of focusing inward in times like these. “I’ll pretend the world’s not ending and I’ll listen to your band,” Mason begins. There’s a certain dissonance to living your everyday life when most personal problems feel like indulgences or deflections from something unavoidable and much bigger than ourselves. On this track, Mason embodies the sense of guilt that comes with that, yet the understanding that there’s not really another way to live. Even gratitude feels tainted, ironic almost in the face of worldly atrocities happening outside our windows. “Even if everything’s fucked, I got pretty lucky with you,” she sings lethargically.
The title track is like a noisy nightmare spiral, playing out until vocals finally come in for the last quarter. It’s the most scathingly political track on the record, packing an entire criticism of our government into just a few lines. “A godless kingdom built on perverse ideals and their one true leader, the false idol,” Mason sings. Much of the song is underscored by a doom metal bassline that elevates it to near theatricality. It does a great job encapsulating what it feels like to live in America right now, in all its spectacle.
“The Fear” is an unexpected centerpiece of The Righteous Sword. Though sonically it’s by far the most stripped back–a lone acoustic guitar was the last thing I expected to hear by this point in the album–the more I listen to the record, the more I view this song as a major connective piece. It reflects on generational patterns in a way that signals toward how violence is passed down and amplified through a society. Not only does it make the clearest connection on the album between how personal themes connect to collective ones, but it also connects the past iterations of Siichaq. It’s the perfect halfway point between the more inward approach of Catcher and the outwardly focused approach of My Dog. Though heavy, the song offers a moment of catharsis; it feels like coming to terms and seeing things clearly at the end of all the chaos of the previous songs.
Though peace and understanding are comforting while they last, “The Fear” leaves us hanging in a fog of noise before “Doing Damage” arrives to remind us that we’re not yet truly in the clear. “Maybe I’m not doing well,” Mason refrains throughout the final song, vocals buried under layers of distorted guitar. We end suspended in a screech, knowing that the staving off of fear and discomfort is only temporary.
‘The Righteous Sword’ was released independently on Aug. 28, 2026.
