It’s weird how the inexorable march of time does things. For example and I bring this up for no particular reason, I like some of John Mayer’s music. I mean the old stuff, like pre-2004 exclusively, excepting Walt Grace for obvious reasons. Room For Squares is one of those Albums I Heard In College. You know the ones I mean, they’re with you forever, you never grow out of them, they never get old. I haven’t listened to Room For Squares in years but I guarantee I could still go word-for-word on half the tracks minimum. I was not ashamed of calling myself a John Mayer fan in this period, I taught myself weak lazy-man versions of his songs on my guitar and played them in front of people sometimes. In the interim since ~2004, John Mayer has revealed the kind of predictably and casually indifferent douchebaggery one would have no difficulty associating with a talented middle-class gen-x white guy from America and so now I hear this new band that is wonderful, that I am listening to on repeat for a week straight, and they resonate with that laid-back singer-songwriter space in my music palace and I think to myself “man, I’ve got the John Mayer feels” and then immediately think “shit do not say that out loud”. Well, too late, better angels. I said it.

Damn, you know I could’ve just said Jack Johnson instead and avoided this whole thing, huh. Too late, I’ve gone to far.

I was traveling recently to help build the network for QuakeCon, as I am known to do, and as is my way for such situations I offlined a bunch of playlists full of bangers (like, a lot of Dua Lipa songs, Wild Rivers pulled me out of the vortex of Dua Lipa somehow) so I’d have music I knew I liked when I wanted music, whether the intarweb is accessible or not. The practical knock-on from this is when I get home, I’m kind of tired of that known-quantity music so I hit the recommender feeds a little harder and Ye Olde Tidale Algorithme fired Wild Rivers at me and, to turn a gamer phrase: boom, head shot. The fact that they’re also Canadian is both unsurprising for me, a card-carrying All-Dressed apologist, yet also a little coincidentally chef kiss after the comedy at QuakeCon. We all had maple syrup in our veins for a little while there.

The vibes on this album are, as the kids say, fucking immaculate. The arrangements are superb, the electronic garnish is perfectly modulated, accenting a foundation of fully grounded guitars and piano and kit drums. It’s the guitar fills that really had me feeling that 2000s guitar-man energy, but it’s the chill and level vibes that carried me through a whole ass week on seven total tracks. I was not previously aware of Wild Rivers, so I can’t compare and contrast to previous outings. What I can say is that Devan Glover’s voice is warm honey, smooth and easy and beautiful. There’s enough bite to elevate when necessary and a softness to blend into harmonies, a little pop in the vibrato. If they were from Québec I’d use some French words so you’d know I ran out of English ones but alas, Toronto, what’re you gonna do. Co-vocalist Khalid Yassein has a comfortable delivery with just the finest amount of gravel, earnest and honest, and it’s used to effect; he has just the right juice for this. By way of contrast, as much as I love the Civil Wars, Joy Williams’ voice, which is fucking angelic, is sometimes blown out of the arrangements by John Paul White, who himself is possessed of a singular instrument. Wild Rivers avoids this entirely by being chocolate and peanut butter, cinnamon and sugar, thin and mints, two great tastes that taste great together.

This is not, strictly speaking, an EP, but it is short. Super, super short. Too short. Suspiciously short, reader. “What’s ‘suspicious’ about it, good grief, it’s just short buddy”. You tell me then, tough guy, why is the last track, an instrumental, called an “interlude”? Interlude, aka any intermediate performance or entertainment, as between the acts of a play. You tell me, seven tracks, one interlude, 22 minutes, the average album clocks in around 40. Yeah, yeah, wake up sheeple there’s a second half of this album, it’s out there, they’re hiding it, it’s in reserve somewhere in Canada in a bunker. What is Wild Rivers up to, what aren’t they telling us? I’m gonna get to the bottom of this by joining their mailing list and buying their merch and waiting for them to reveal their plan. What are YOU gonna do?

(Update 2024-09-12: Fuckin’ called it.)

Anyway, but one teaser track, buy the album, hear the others. Hear them all repeatedly, would be my recommendation. I don’t know all the words to all the songs yet, so I’ve still got work to do, at least. Confusingly I don’t think Dance is the best song on the album. It’s a great song and I sing the “all we do is spin around"s out loud like any warm blooded person would, but what it is is the vibe of this album; it’s the centreline. The title track is energetic, Cave has I think my favorite phrasing choices (of many) in the pre-chorus (“We need to talk, four words no one wants to hear but I kinda knew it, ready or not, don’t lie if you’re gonna do it, do it”), Hardly Ever with the wordplay “I don’t ever, I don’t ever (hardly ever) really think about you no more” (parentheses implied), “Anyways, I Love You” is the most Jack Johnson, but Dance. It’s just so, comfortable. Ironic, really, since there is perhaps no place on earth I am less comfortable than a dance floor, so I cannot relate to this in any direct way except by substituting some other activity for “dance”, but still. But still, reader, I present to you: Dance.