Mike Vorpal breaks the mold with bold new single "Charlatan"

In the genre-melding outbreak, Mike Vorpal thrusts you into a tantrum lined with internet-era glitches, theatrics, and emotional mania in the new single "Charlatan." A track from his debut solo EP, "Memes," "Charlatan" is a critique of the performative visages we adopt in a digitally interconnected society.

Enter Mike, an unabashed artist who blends art rock, emo-trap, dream pop, and indietronica into a head-spinning cocktail that still works seamlessly. At its heart, "Charlatan" finds a tenuous equilibrium between furtive openness and roaring confidence, juxtaposing gritty vocals with thick, temperamental guitar plumes interwoven with synths that leech up the seams and stretch like digital static.

This brooding, forceful track cannot possibly be anyone other than Mike Vorpal, who takes inspiration from all things and all people while still sounding unmistakably like himself. The song is like a pulse, an ebb and flow, making room for the tension to simmer slowly before slamming into emotional cathartic rages.

Even though Mike seems to know how to make a grand sound, "Charlatan" sounds as relentless as it can be from him. It makes a mockery of the ridiculousness of digital performance, and yet it comes across as dreamily real. As Mike puts it, "I really wanted to make something that feels both immediate and timeless," and it is more than apparent in every displaced chord and stanza. If "Memes" serve as a mirror of our collective mood, "Charlatan" is the crack running down its center, dark and twisted and impossible to forget.

Find Mike Vorpal on Instagram