A tried and true melodic wit is one of the few things in this world that I would undisputedly deem recession-proof, and it takes an artist like Rob Alexander to demonstrate this point time and time again. In Alexander’s potent new single, titled “A Song to Get Us Through,” we don’t hear a singer/songwriter playing to the basic fundamentals of what pop-rock is supposed to sound, feel and look like in the year 2021, but instead someone committed to the notion of melodic communication more than he is the styling of his expressions. It adds up to an uncut performance from a talent untethered to trends, which is always an unmissable one in my book.
First off, I really dig how soft the strings are in this track even though they’re enormous in the big picture of the instrumentation. The piano can barely withstand the volume capacity afforded to the guitar parts, and still we get this sense of fragility from their harmony with Alexander that couldn’t have been rendered from anything else I can think of. It’s the opposite of overthinking; truthfully, I feel like this is the most natural we’ve seen this singer/songwriter look since dropping his debut a few years ago.
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Rob Alexander never has to belt out any of his words with an excessive might in this song – frankly, his relaxed attitude mirrors that of the guitar’s role in the mix here. There’s strength in a number of quiet forces coming together to create clandestine chaos, and this has perhaps never been demonstrated quite as concisely within his discography outside of this single. Dream Out Loud is a very outside-of-the-box LP, and if you’re curious about whether or not you’re going to be into what the rest of its tracklist consists of, “A Song to Get Us Through” is something you need to check out first.
Despite the surreally introverted sound of his peers, Rob Alexander doesn’t shift from the trajectory he started off on with the release of his last album back in 2019 in this latest studio cut. He has absolutely no interest in blending in with the crowd or trying to fit in with what someone else’s pop singer/songwriter is supposed to be; in “A Song to Get Us Through,” he declares that peace is on its way and ready to embrace us if you’re willing to give it a chance, and no matter how you interpret the poetic elements of his words, there’s no debating whether or not his heart is in this narrative completely. I’ll be looking out for more of his work in the future, and while this is definitely a new high for his career as I’ve come to know it since 2018, I would have a very hard time believing that he won’t be able to top what he’s accomplished in both “A Song to Get Us Through” and Dream Out Loud overall. He’s boasting top-notch talent, and that isn’t arguable after hearing this song and its parent album.
Troy Johnston