Tony Frissore and AXIOM Confront Service, Identity and Disillusionment on “Stolen Valor”
Tony Frissore and AXIOM have a very dark, very introspective “Stolen Valor” which looks at the fraught relationship between military service, identity and disenchantment. They don’t approach the title in the usual way at all. It’s an inward looking song about the experience of someone who’s actually served in the military and who starts to question whether the values of that service still hold the same meaning. It’s a song born of experience in the military and the national security community. There’s anger in it, but that anger is balanced out by sadness, by disappointment and by a sense of residual affection for something that once gave you purpose, gave you friends and gave you a sense of belonging. It’s not a song that’s trying to speak for a community at all. It’s AXIOM’s own take on the subject and that’s what gives it the emotional heft and the sense of authenticity.
it’s a very brooding trip-hop piece with AXIOM’s spoken word at the heart of it. A slow funkish groove with atmospheric synths and distant sirens. It’s very cinematic in its presentation without the music ever getting in the way of the message. There are obvious links to the more atmospheric work of Massive Attack, Tricky and UNKLE but the subject matter is very much its own thing. Frissore’s experience across so many genres (funk, jazz, hip-hop, electronic) is evident in the way the track is put together which is very measured and purposeful. The pace is very restrained which allows the words to really sit in the listener’s mind. It’s a piece which is very much about the emotional journey of someone trying to process a range of feelings from hurt through to anger, shame and memory with no easy answers.
(right in the middle of the US midterms and just prior to Veterans Day) “Stolen Valor” is a track that’s very much in a political moment. The politics of the situation are very much there but the song’s power is in its refusal to tell you what you should think. Frissore and AXIOM aren’t asking you to come to any particular conclusion. They’re just laying out a personal conflict that’s very difficult to talk about in normal conversation. That’s the thing that makes it work. It’s a thoughtful and very unsettling piece of work. It’s a song that sits in the space between spoken word and the murky, groove-based production to explore what happens when a sense of purpose is undermined by disillusionment. You’re left with the questions. “Stolen Valor” is a great track.
‘Stolen Valor’ is Tony Frissore and AXIOM’s take on a personal crisis of service and identity. It’s a dark, cinematic exploration of loyalty, of disappointment and of the questions that simply don’t get answered.
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