Wild Rivers Leaves the Sidelines with New Album
Image Courtesy of Kingston Live
By Renee Rasmussen
The past few months have been busy for the Indie band Wild Rivers as they quickly wrapped up on one tour to start another while in the midst of dropping their new album Sidelines on February 4.
“Making this record has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of our careers,” the band wrote on its Instagram. “Over the last few years, we felt like we were trying to arrive at this new phase of our story. As individuals and as a group we were trying to dig into who we were, and where we wanted to be. Not quite being there, looking at our own lives from the sidelines.”
This theme of budding adulthood mixed with uncertainty and a slight longing for the past is one that runs through every song on the short ten-track album.
The album begins with a slow burn that highlights nostalgia and the end of childhood, symbolized through the closing of video stores, the end of friendships and first loves, and culminating in the chorus that repeats, “the more I see, the less I know about it.”
The band then transitions to a more upbeat instrumental with the next track, but they keep the lyrics introspective, tricking the audience with their mix of serious lyrics and cheerful beats.
The band explains this combination, writing “‘Bedrock’ is about the hard times. That feeling when every time you catch a lucky break, the rug gets pulled out from under you. Rock bottom, last straw. This song is about the moment of catharsis where you throw your hands up and give in to it.”
The next song, “Long Time,” is reminiscent of the band’s lyrical writing from their EP Songs to Break Up To, as it takes the listener through the fallout of a breakup that can last as long as four years, and the struggle of watching your life compared to someone else’s.
The second verse brings out this notion as lead singer Devan sings, “Phone calls, yeah, it’s been a while back / You found love, maybe I should try that / And you’re growing up, while I’m in a rut / Don’t mind me if I never write back.”
“Long Time” is a heart-wrenching breakup song that highlights the band’s lyrical style, but the next song, “Stubborn Heart,” is the highlight of the album.
“Stubborn Heart” is the closest thing this folk-styled band will come to performing a pop song, and, like “Bedrock,” the beat is hopeful, but the lyrics make the audience take a second listen. It is still a serious song “poking fun at naivety and young love,” according to the band, but lyrics such as “shake it off your back / Someone’s getting cut if we play rough like that / all is fair in love / You push, you pull, but I won’t budge” still feel somber.
The next two songs, “Amsterdam” and “Weatherman,” fit perfectly in the album as songs about missed chances, the maybes that never get explored, and the unpredictability of life (and the weather).
The song “Untouchable” falls flat with its basic chorus, but the lyrics in both verses add more depth. Still, this depth is lost to the predictable musical background that has the guitar strum the same chords, making it all feel too repetitive, shown by the way the word “untouchable” is the main aspect of the chorus.
However, the next three songs make up for this blunder, notably with “Neon Stars” and “Safe Flight.”
“Neon Stars” is a song about looking back at a relationship in the light of a bar sign. Where songs such as “Long Time” look back at the past in the lens of hurt and pain, “Neon Stars” looks back on the past with a small smile, remembering the beginning of a relationship and the good times with little remorse.
Finally, the band ends their second album with the song “Safe Flight,” a song that compares a relationship to waiting for a plane. The metaphor between love and flying is one that the song embraces with lyrics such as, “Love don’t keep sitting on runways / Waiting on storm breaks / Signaling back and forth / Hundred feet over the tropics / We’re in the cockpit / Trying to stay the course.”
It is the best song to end the album: it is melancholy, nostalgic, and introspective, similar to previous songs by the band, but it is also accepting and almost hopeful, perfectly encapsulating where the band is musically and personally.
“We looked into ourselves and wrote it down like a little time capsule of a quarter-life crisis. We asked some big scary questions and became OK with not knowing the answers,” Wild Rivers said.
While Sidelines may not give listeners the answers to all their problems, hurts, or worries, it will be the soundtrack that plays as you attempt to find them, as it encourages you to leave the sidelines of your own life, respecting your past while embracing your future.
