Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite release Strange Intuition
URL: https://patientlyawaitingthemeteorite.band/
When Dee hits the first line of “Strange Intuition”, you know you are in for something special. The Canadian three piece of The Grand Brothers and rising star Dee are coming up fast as a force to be reckoned with under the moniker Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite, but devoted music fans know these young powerhouses have been making their way up the ladder for some time. The decision to bring their talents together under this name has resulted in one of the year’s best studio albums from anyone, Canyon Diablo, and the push accompanying the album’s release has stressed their full array of talents in a masterful way. “Strange Intuition” does so as well thanks to its bracing revitalization of rock music’s coupled alongside modern touches and a production style involving listeners from the first. Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite isn’t all about the guitar and drums, per se, but they use that as one of the key building blocks in constructing a sound capable of incorporating a variety of elements.
The band cites, among others, Pink Floyd and Bon Iver among their chief influences. You really don’t hear much, if any, of either in their music if you’re listening for the obvious dream-like soundscapes or post-modern folky meanderings. Instead, you hear the influence in Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite’s daring. In my opinion, it’s rather plucky that these three outstanding musicians and writer choose to adopt rock music at such a late date in our popular music history, long after the style has been thoroughly consigned (unjustly) by market forces to some cultural backwater, but they seem ready to make people rethink that banishment. The reason why is because they challenge, non-confrontational, our ideas of what rock music can and should sound like.
The strong production aesthetic underpinning “Strange Intuition” and electronic effects running throughout the track never really beat their figurative chests and announce themselves. Instead, it’s a discreet backdrop for everything else they do – this is a retro sound placed within a thoroughly modern context and the dissonance we might expect to hear creeping in never arrives. Instead, the style Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite adopts comes off with nary a single artistic hiccup and sounds like the perfect marriage of sensibilities. Dee’s vocal and lyrical contributions seal the deal, in some respects, as it gives the song a near singer/songwriter genre style – there’s obviously a great deal of care and thought put into this writing and it results in a part of the composition every bit as complete as the musical arrangement.
Patiently Awaiting the Meteorite’s “Strange Intuition” continues making the case that Canyon Diablo is one of the year’s best albums. Both Dee and the Grand Brothers have enjoyed a lot of success in the music world so far, but they’ve hit upon something with this project that transcends the already fine work that’s come before. It’s a style and sound with the possibility of appealing to the widest possible audience – older listeners like myself and young music fans should respond to what they are doing here and continue coming back for more.
LISTEN/BUY: https://smarturl.it/CanyonDiablo
Jamie Morse