Medieval mystics believed in the literal resurrection of the flesh. Centuries later, geologists discover dried-up lakes in the Mojave Desert that are millions of years old. To be clear: between these two ways of understanding the world lies a chasm that modern humans leap across daily, often without even acknowledging it to themselves. Hilary Cousins decided to place this rupture at the center of his new song, and the result turned out surprisingly cohesive for a track about the fragmentary nature of existence.

“Fragments” operates in territory that indie rock usually circumvents—where religious metaphysics meets evolutionary biology, where a particle from the Big Bang flows through human blood. Cousins writes about things that typically remain in academic texts or late-night conversations, but fashions from them a song with a hook that lodges in your head. The ambition here is obvious, and it will either work or crack under its own weight.

The lyrics are structured rather binarily: the first half immerses itself in the medieval worldview with its seven-day creation and final resurrection; the second turns to scientific cosmology. The shift between optics is radical, but Cousins navigates the narrative confidently enough to avoid didacticism. The mention of Lucy—the australopithecine whose remains revolutionized anthropology—fits into the text organically, without an intrusive educational agenda. The final lines of the second verse about an ancient river from endless rain flowing through veins sound almost like an incantation, a mantra for those attempting to reconcile cosmic loneliness with the thirst for meaning.

The chorus poses the central question: if personality is merely a collection of fragments, why does the search for identity feel so important? Cousins leaves the question open, allowing the melody to do the work philosophy cannot.

The sound moves away from acoustic folk toward synthesizer-based indie pop with glitch elements. Chris Ranney on keyboards creates the atmosphere, Paul Brennan leads the rhythm section without excessive aggression, allowing the track to breathe where other drummers would start pushing. Tony Ungaro on bass adds dynamics that maintain attention throughout the song’s entire length. Cousins‘ guitar parts are syncopated enough to create tension in the verses, which resolves in the choruses.

Hilary Cousins took on material that could easily have devolved into a pretentious lecture about cosmos and consciousness. Instead, he wrote a song that poses serious questions and refuses to provide easy answers, while remaining melodic enough that you want to listen repeatedly.

The only real liability here is audience. If you want frictionless indie pop, all these references to australopithecines and cosmology will feel like homework. If you’re hunting for capital-I Intellectual work, the synthesizers and hooks might read as compromise. But Cousins isn’t splitting the difference—he’s carving out something else entirely. Medieval mystics rubbing shoulders with evolutionary theory over a synth bed shouldn’t work this well, and yet here we are, three listens deep, still thinking about particles from the Big Bang flowing through human veins.

This is music for a specific kind of listener, sure. But that listener exists, and “Fragments” speaks their language without apologizing for it.

*This review was made possible by SubmitHub