A Gobstopper is a hard candy that is better known in the U.S. and Canada as a jawbreaker. Candy witha a name that describes breaking a body part, sounds dangerous. However, the kids love ‘em. They seemingly take forever to eat, too. This song is, indeed, ear candy for rock music fans.
The New Zealand band Saurian’s track is about at candy ball where the ‘gob’ part comes from Irish and U.K. slang for the mouth. Many may have first encountered this name for the candy from the Roald Dahl story (which also became a movie) called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This was a tale about a group of (mostly) selfish children that find a golden ticket in a Willie Wonka chocolate bar and are rewarded with a tour of his famous candy plant. In that film, the sweet was called an Everlasting Gobstopper, in that it lasted forever – literally.
This four-piece band is pictured on its Soundcloud page with round, white gobstoppers sticking out from their – well — mouths. The group’s singer sounds a lot like Ian Astbury of The Cult. He has that sort of vocal swagger oftentimes associated with Astbury’s style. The song even features a loud electric guitar solo. The song fades out with a group-chanted vocal repetition of the song’s one word title. The song is only about two minutes long, which is shorter than the time it takes to finish one of these hard-as-rock candies.
It’s difficult to figure out what Saurian is attempting to say with this song. However, the singer does tell someone to “stick it where the sun don’t shine” at one point, so it’s not exactly the kind of thing a child might hear from the cashier at his/her local candy store. Thus, this is not – despite the candy-eating band photo – an advertisement for any candy.
Sonically, this track keeps its instrumentation basic. It’s a simple electric rock guitar groove, laid over pounding drums and thumping bass. The track doesn’t do much that’s different rhythmically or melodically once it gets going. No musical bridges. No key changes. Just a good, crunchy rock and roll song.
One photo on the act’s Facebook page has been altered to look like Gene Wilder (who played Willie Wonka in the famous movie) holding up the picture of the group’s single – the one where they’re all seemingly enjoying a little sweet tooth jawbreaker action.
While the words to this song can be a little cryptic, there is a line about goings on in a foreign land, as well as one that speaks about where to drop a bomb. Thus, this could very well be a kind of musical critique of some foreign policy or other. Maybe one needs to know a little more about New Zealand politics to fully comprehend it.
https://www.facebook.com/saurianband
https://www.saurianband.com
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Even if you don’t know precisely what Saurian is singing about on this short, but sweet, track, you’ll likely still dig it. It’s been said many times before that the best rock music is usually also the simplest. Chuck Berry once sang how complicating rock & roll can sometimes “change the beauty of the melody.” Thankfully, Saurian doesn’t ever let that any of that loveliness get spoiled at all. This is a thing of hard rock (and candy) beauty.
-Dan MacIntosh
