Review: Meadowview - Like We Used To

It’s a shame Meadowview’s EP, Like We Used To, came out in late fall. This is summer music

I’m quick to classify the group’s sound as driving music. Windows down, contemplatively carefree, search the horizon music. The last stretch to the coast on Highway 210 music.

Sure there may be some heartbreak about. Some unanswered questions. where did it go wrong

At least that’s how the EP’s first two songs set up Meadowville. They sound eponymous to the band name. “You Don’t Know” is an attempt at escapism with a melodic hook. “It’s days like this I start to reminisce...I think about what I could have missed,” opines lead singer Rob Shoemaker while engulfed in his own guitar chords.

But then there’s a heel turn. “No Strings” digs in. We have turned the car around. We are returning to a woman who left us wanting, no, needing a week in the sand to get a total body sunburn to mask our inner thoughts with actual physical pain.

And as if right on queue, the short play closes out at the right tone. We’ve worked through every stage of coping. Michael Donohue (drums) and Kyle Spidel (bass) lead the way as Shoemaker punctuates every declaration with an appropriate riff on “Fine Line.”

Are we in a good place? I don’t know. But it feels like it.

And I’m definitely wrong about that whole summer thing. It’s a cold world.

Check out Meadowview Like We Used To

Review: Of Good Nature - Life Worth Livin

Of Good Nature doesn’t confine themselves to any specific genre, and you can hear why on Life Worth Livin, the band’s second full-length album. The freewheeling jam sessions that often accompany the quartet’s live shows seamlessly transition into tight compositions for the studio release that fluctuate between pop melodies and funk rhythms.

While the title track and opener is a veritable call-to-action, harkening back to English 2 Tone-era reggae with lyrics such as, “We used to be, ‘We The People”/Unity/The government’s changed entirely,” which seems extremely appropriate as “The People” are currently miring in an election cycle, Life Worth Livin is best taken in more loving doses.

Brandon Hucks’ trombone is easily the most recognizable (and welcome) feature of the group, but Cameron Brown’s vocals are both bold and comfortable when paired with the brass and sturdy, driving bass lines all over the cuts.

When all are combined on “The Other,” an idealistic ode to the perfect partner that includes Brown crooning, “It don’t matter what you wear,” it makes for an easy, danceable jolt of energy that hits you hard with surprising amounts of guitar riffs and percussion at those exact right moments you want, no, need them to.

And that’s basically the entire affair. Songs that make you want to move and look at things with a glass half-full mentality. Something we could probably all use more of.

Review: The Kodiak Brotherhood - Wild Ursus

“I’m only quiet when I have nothing to say,” admits H.L. Ruth on “Time,” the penultimate track to The Kodiak Brotherhood’s late 2013 release, Wild Ursus.

By then though we’ve gotten a taste of TKB: a raucous outlaw country outfit from Concord, N.C. With Ruth pacing the entire affair with casually big vocals and equally powerful slide guitar, a seasoned backdrop fills out the soundscape like a yellow-lit bar in the part of town that will never be gentrified.

Almost every member of the group has roots with other bands from the area (Ruth, The New Familiars; Chris Rigo, Sugar Glyders; Ben Robinson, Swift Robinson; Derek Furr, Goldfish Andy) yet come together like next of kin at an Irish wake.

That was the worst way of saying this is balls-out drinking music. Southern rock like it was meant to sound. Rollicking anthems that touch on love and loss and finding a new way. What The Kodiak Brotherhood does in an EP is more than most bands can muster with an album.

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