{"id":45693,"date":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dragons\/"},"modified":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T00:00:00","slug":"dragons","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dragons\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most remarkable things about Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors\u2019 2017 album Souvenir<\/a><\/i> was how it managed to both live in the moment of its birth and rise above it, addressing darkness and division in admirably direct terms while making a conscious choice to frame it as a \u201cFight For Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennessee native Holcomb is nothing if not earnest, but over the course of Souvenir<\/i> and new album Dragons<\/i>, it feels like he and The Neighbors (Nathan Dugger on guitars and keys, and Rich Brinsfield on bass) have reached a new level in terms of translating those core values and musical instincts into plain-spoken folk-pop\/Americana tunes that are both engaging and affecting. The songs have always felt purposeful and crafted with care, but on these last two albums they feel just a little bigger, delivering more space, more hooks, more power, and greater impact.<\/p>\n

The opening one-two punch of \u201cFamily\u201d and \u201cEnd Of The World\u201d underscores this impression, the former a big-boned back-porch singalong, the latter a sky-hugging folk-rock anthem. The punchy, hooky \u201cFamily\u201d explores the highs (\u201cAll in this together \/ We\u2019re takin\u2019 a chance \/ Like birds of a feather \/ Take off your shoes and dance\u201d) and lows (\u201cOn the way to the city \/ Laughin\u2019 in the rain \/ It ain\u2019t always pretty \/ Can drive you insane\u201d) of life in a big extended family. Then \u201cEnd Of The World\u201d finds Holcomb taking on a preacher\u2019s aspect to urge his congregation onward: \u201cDon\u2019t eulogize on my behalf \/ I\u2019m a long way from epitaph \/ I\u2019m only gettin\u2019 started on this lost highway \/ I am brave and I am not afraid.\u201d <\/p>\n

Next up, \u201cBut I\u2019ll Never Forget The Way You Make Me Feel\u201d is a deceptively simple, subtly beautiful love song with a timeless feel to it, co-written by Drew and his wife and former bandmate Ellie Holcomb, who sings\u00a0 gorgeous harmonies. The title track revisits the stripped-down hoedown singalong feel of \u201cFamily,\u201d this time slowing it down for a metaphor-rich fever dream about finding your purpose in life.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s second act finds Holcomb exploring familiar themes. There\u2019s a thoughtful\/wistful mid-tempo slice of parental life (\u201cSee The World\u201d), a swaying folk-rock rumination on the pitfalls of all kinds of desire (\u201cYou Want What You Can\u2019t Have,\u201d co-written with and featuring Lori McKenna on harmony vocals), and the airy, philosophical ballad \u201cMaybe.\u201d \u201cYou Make It Look Easy\u201d leans more to the rock side of things, a jangly, airy road song that leads smartly into the album\u2019s standout track. <\/p>\n

Drew Holcomb\u2019s brother Jay was born paralyzed from the chest down, three years younger than Drew, and died when Drew was 17. \u201cI started writing songs in college as a way to deal with the loss. In those early years, I only wrote one song explicitly about him, and have struggled to do it again in the following fourteen years<\/a>,\u201d Drew says. In \u201cYou Never Leave My Heart,\u201d he re-enters his own memories of the day of Jay\u2019s funeral and narrates scene after compelling scene from that day, channeling the laughter, the tears, and most of all the disorienting gut-punch of overwhelming grief. The song is a magnificent tribute and the vocal may be the best Holcomb has ever sung, raw and honest and rich with emotion, his voice breaking just a bit as he sings of \u201cjoy in the kitchen\u201d and again near the end as he repeats the title over and over. The song is heartfelt and stunning, a moment of purest vulnerability and truth-telling. <\/p>\n

Closer \u201cBittersweet\u201d makes a nice coda, airy and elegiac, reminding us that \u201cEvery curtain falls eventually.\u201d Like Switchfoot, Holcomb and the Neighbors return repeatedly to spiritual and philosophical concerns (\u201cMaybe we\u2019re lost in what we want, not what we need \/ Everything is never enough\u201d) without ever slipping into religious dogma; it\u2019s a delicate balancing act that both acts typically pull off well.<\/p>\n

Dragons<\/i> finds Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors exploring familiar themes with all the earnest conviction fans have come to expect, and while Holcomb mostly stays within his comfort zone, \u201cYou Never Leave My Heart\u201d reminds you of what he\u2019s capable of achieving when he digs deep and opens that big heart up to the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9145],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45693","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-drew-holcomb-the-neighbors","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51954,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45693\/revisions\/51954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45693"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45693"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}