Amid an ascending melody as rich as it is toned, we see the true character of a band and their guest singer – in this case, played by Gideon King & City Blog plus one Ashley Hess. In their hot new single “Somewhere Only We Know” (the first single off of Splinters), the classic alternative rock track is joined by a jazzy cast of characters as diverse as the world around us is. The melodies are strong but the beat is evenhanded to no end, creating an intriguing contrast with that opening lyric that isn’t all that different from what we hear in the prose that Hess is using to communicate her emotions in this track. The lyrics are plastered atop all of these components, keeping us engaged with the words that are stumbling into the strings and merging to yield a harmonic wall of sound that is both physically and sonically moving. It doesn’t take much longer than fifteen seconds to become enamored with this striking melody, and after several minutes of play has passed us by, it’s hard to deny the talent of the artists we’ve just made acquaintances with.
The instrumentation in “Somewhere Only We Know,” like the vocal on its own, doesn’t have a lot of excess to it at all. In comparison to other covers I’ve heard of this song in the past, this is more efficient and streamlined in production, with its central hook catching the light like a sparkling diamond at an expensive jewelry store, but there’s not enough polish for me to deem this as purely radio content.
The rhythm is a reckless beast that is calmed only by the slow-churning lyrical execution of Hess, and for the most part, the guitar parts shy away from any sort of virtuosity that would tether them to traditional fusion standards. In other words, “Somewhere Only We Know” is really as virtuously indie as they come, but it isn’t driven by a pretentious, egocentric singularity in its poetry that the vast majority of similar songs I’ve reviewed this summer have been horrendously burdened by. At the end of the day Gideon King & City Blog have an exciting crossover
r appeal that will make them attractive to a lot of soul-pop fans who have been hungry for something new and interesting out of the underground for a minute now, and it satisfies the requirements that I have when I look for a contemporary indie single. Their connection with the lyrics is mature and concise, and although there are a couple of tweaks that some of us – myself included – might have made to the master mix here, I don’t find anything about the production value of “Somewhere Only We Know” to be ineffective or regrettable. While they haven’t been on my radar for all that long, I think there’s a good chance that this band is going to be a serious player in 2023, and if they get the platform that they need to reach the masses, their momentum might become impossible for anyone to stop.
Clay Burton