This is my most listened to song of the past year (as of June 2024). What’s there not to like? This song even includes the “they said the line!!” part, “You say it’s a city of the future, but a future in whose eyes?” before referencing their previous Bland Street Bloom. Well actually, this song took some time to grow on me; SikTh, after all, isn’t your most mainstream band. I think what got it to be my top song are the lyrics. SikTh presents visions of a desolate future in many of the songs on this album, and that’s a particular aesthetic in art I find that I really like. Golden Cufflinks particularly is about gentrification, I think, sapping out the life of the city (similar to the aforementioned Bland Street Bloom) in the process, in the pursuit of “betterment”. Meanwhile, the people living there are powerless to the “wizards”/“mercenaries”/“insipid minds”/“money men”/“banal”, all they can do is sit and watch the destruction.

What are you hoping for?