B-Side Guys

Magic shows work because we want to believe. Zoë Kilgren’s “Magician,” released in the early hours of New Music Friday, deconstructs this willing suspension of disbelief through the lens of a relationship built on empty promises and practiced deception.

The Los Angeles quartet’s genre-defying approach serves the narrative perfectly. Their surf-rock underpinnings provide a deceptively bright backdrop for Kilgren’s increasingly desperate observations: “You smoke all of my darts and drink all of my booze/and leave with someone new.” The contrast creates the same cognitive dissonance as watching someone you love self-destruct at a party.

The song’s unconventional structure mirrors its emotional trajectory. Where most pop songs offer resolution through chorus repetition, “Magician” withholds its hook until halfway through – much like the promises of change that never materialize in its lyrics. The delayed gratification builds tension until the devastating spoken-word bridge arrives, Kilgren’s voice cutting through the instrumental swell: “You cut me in half in front of everyone/And never even thought twice about it.”

Drawing from tarot imagery, Kilgren transforms the Magician card’s duality – creator and conman – into a meditation on enabling. “I sit I watch I listen/You can call me a fool/Or the magician’s assistant” she offers, acknowledging complicity in her own deception. The production maintains this balancing act, walking a line between Paramore’s polish and No Doubt’s raw edge while carving out territory distinctly their own.

The real sleight of hand here isn’t in the subject’s endless promises, but in how Kilgren transmutes personal devastation into universal truth. “Things will never change” arrives not as defeat but as hard-won wisdom, suggesting that sometimes the greatest magic trick is finally seeing through the illusion.