Autobahn frontman launches solo project as Crig with lead single ‘You Want To Be Buried In a Cardboard Box’
We all die. That’s an unavoidable fact of life. But it’s one that we very rarely confront. It’s rarer still that we render it charming. However, Crig, the new solo vehicle for the frontman of the Leeds post-punk band Autobahn, does just that. With a kitsch Bontempi sound, death has never sounded so sweet—and I’m at a bloody funeral tomorrow.
Lo-fi strumming, a steady beat, and the odd synthesised interlude make up the music for this obscure little song. It’s a refreshingly humble assortment in an age that all too often comes to the conclusion that excess and dissonance are the secret to originality in an era of cultural congestion. Crig circumvents that and offers an alternative: maybe we should just get to the heart?
That’s the beauty of ‘You Want To Be Buried In a Cardboard Box’. It might be wry and as happily aloof as a Wes Anderson movie, but you can’t say that the diary-like lyricism and bareness of the melody don’t imbue it with a vulnerable sense of sincerity. This sentiment ensures that from humble scarcity comes a whole host of feelings.
It sounds like nostalgia. It sounds like the lighting things set in New York back in 2006 used to have. It sounds like September. It makes you feel warm. It makes you feel like you should text your old pal for a pint. And it makes you feel like you should treat yourself to more Danish pastries before you do, inevitably, end up in a box of some sort.
Speaking about the track, Crig himself explained, “If I find any of you burying me in a cardboard box, I’ll be back to haunt you. I want solid wood, oak or something – with nice handles. You know, that sort of thing. Remember this: someday, someone’s going to dig you up, and if you’re in a wooden box, they might think you were a king. And who knows, with technology, they might even resurrect you. Imagine becoming a god in a future world, only to be stuck lying there in your cardboard box.”
It’s a fittingly indie movie-like explanation of a song that shares many of the hallmarks of the genre—sweet, sentimental, and wholesomely DIY.
It’s the first track of many that Crig hopes to grace us with as he sets his sights beyond the four-track debut EP that is set to arrive on April 4th via Elevator to Eden.
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