Dublin post-punk/synthpop outfit Gravité Fresq crank the neon paranoia all the way up on “Reality Is Premium,” a glossy 80s-flavoured anthem for the subscription age. Sitting somewhere between Pet Shop Boys’ icy poise and New Order’s driving melancholy, with a dash of LCD-style media anxiety, the track dives headfirst into a world where authenticity is scarce, “human” needs a label, and even your feelings feel algorithmically curated.
From the get-go, the production is all high-definition dread, with thumping, hard-hitting beats lock in with a rubbery bass pulse while synths and guitars flicker like glitching billboards. Over the top, the vocal arrives sounding worn-out and wired at the same time, delivering lines in a fatigued voice that feels perfectly matched to the subject matter, someone who spends all day scrolling, all night questioning whether any of it is real.
Then the chorus kicks in, and the whole thing opens up. The singer suddenly soars, the guitars buzz and drive with distorted urgency, and that hook, “Reality is premium,” lands like a slogan on a very cursed ad campaign. It’s catchy enough to shout along to on a dancefloor, but the more you think about it, the more it stings: truth as pay-per-view, “certified human suffering” as content, green dots and read receipts as proof of life.
Lyrically, the song has fun skewering our timeline, with cookie warnings, airbrushed gods, “lease the life you fake” imagery, hardware dreams in software skin. Yet under the wit you feel the ache of having traded something you can’t get back, and no subscription tier fixes that.
Toward the end, a sharp, bending guitar solo slices through the mix, riding the heart-pumping beat and haunting atmosphere like a distress signal cutting through static. By the time the final “meeting ends, nothing was decided,” “Reality Is Premium” has done its job: it makes you dance, then makes you wonder what, exactly, you just agreed to by clicking “accept.”
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Review by: Naomi Joan