Black Steam rises into the moral conflict of war with “Higher”

Black Steam’s “Higher” transports the listener into the conflicted mind of a fighter pilot caught between duty, adrenaline, and the human toll of war. There is an instant tension in the song’s premise: getting up into the sky to accomplish a mission, but wondering more and more what the fight down below is about. Higher” feels less like a celebration of conflict and more like a contemplation of the cost of war.