Here’s the thing about conspiracy theories: they’re never really about aliens, or lizards, or whatever cryptid you’ve decided stole your uncle’s cows. They’re about trust. Or, more accurately, the lack of it. American Grim’s “Secrets of Roswell” understands this. Sure, it throws the word “Roswell” around and sprinkles in your classic UFO jargon but it’s not really a history lesson about a crash in 1947. American Grim’s “Secrets of Roswell” is paranoia made audible. It’s what it feels like to scroll through the news in 2025 and wonder how much of this is real, and how much of it is the aural equivalent of men in suits whispering, “Don’t worry about it.”
The track is drenched in that Nine Inch Nails brand of industrial dread; machines that sound like they’ve been left to rust in an abandoned warehouse, electronics buzzing like interference from a scrambled transmission. But unlike Trent Reznor’s tendency to bury you in existential despair, American Grim slice it with Rob Zombie swagger. This is less “The Downward Spiral” and more “Dragula drives through Area 51.” You get riffs that stomp, beats that grind, and vocals that don’t just ask, “Do you believe what’s outside of this Earth?” They practically shove you against a wall and demand to know why you’re pretending everything’s fine.
And that’s the genius of it. Because the imagery of stuff like the Buick stuffed with alien scraps, the cryptic symbols cluttering the kitchen floor could be played for schlock. In another band’s hands, this is a SyFy Original Movie soundtrack. But American Grim know how to make camp feel threatening. The chorus “The secrets they’re hiding will be kept in the dark” doesn’t hit like a fun singalong. It drills into your brain like a government memo accidentally CC’d to the wrong inbox. By the time it’s repeated for the fiftieth time, it stops sounding like a lyric and starts sounding like an obsession.
There’s a reason the track feels immediate rather than nostalgic: it’s abrasive enough to scratch that industrial itch, but it’s also hooky, structured, and smartly produced. The kind of song you can headbang to, sure, but also the kind you’ll catch yourself chanting hours later, much to the concern of everyone in line at Target.
And this is where the Roswell metaphor clicks. The track doesn’t want you to start a YouTube channel about little green men. It wants you to admit that secrecy and lies are the default setting of power and that paranoia isn’t a glitch in the system, it is the system. You’re not meant to think about Roswell in 1947. You’re meant to think about the gaps in every story you’re told today. About the files we’re assured are “classified for your safety.” About the gnawing suspicion that someone, somewhere, is laughing at how little you know.
“Secrets of Roswell” works because it isn’t about aliens at all. It’s about the horror of realizing you live in a world that treats you like an outsider to the truth, left pacing in the dark while the people in charge keep muttering, “Nothing to see here.”
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
