Songs of the Week: Terry Blade, LAV.ISH, & more

Welcome to Songs of the Week, a running series with new selections.

2023 will be your year, dear reader. As it’s always done, art will promises to be a salve for both expression and escape. When things get tough, as they did time and again last year, music in particular has a way of cleansing the spirit. With a new year, there comes endless possibilities. And what better way to kick off the new year than a lineup of must-hear new tracks, from infectious pop bangers to sensitive singer-songwriter fare. No more dilly-dallying, let’s get to it.

Terry Blade – “Won’t Be Around”

Terry Blade smolders over piano and acoustic guitar. “Won’t Be Around” finds the singer-songwriter honoring the roots of American music with a barebones arrangement and a bluesy melody. “I don’t have to keep you,” he strikes like a viper. In casting off a lover, Blade promises that it’ll be the last you ever see of him. “I won’t be behind you / I won’t be beside you / I’m gonna leave you,” he unloads every ounce of heartache onto his guitar. Blade’s voice carries immense weight and pierces right through the heart. You can’t escape his power as a performer.

River Town Saints – “Goodbye Ain’t a Game”

With “Goodbye Ain’t a Game,” River Town Saints mull over an on-again, off-again romance. “Keep saying that it’s over when we know that it isn’t,” shrugs lead singer Chase Kasner. The back and forth has caused mental deterioration, even though both parties know full and well what’s going on. “Start a fire and then put out the flame,” continues Kasner, his voice crackling with a slight rasp. The gloss pop-country exterior transmits the song’s emotional heartbeat, with electric guitars crying in the arrangement. It’s both sweeping and vulnerable, the makings of a great country song.

LAV.ISH – “Red Flags”

Everything about this life is temporary. From the people we meet to the places we see, nothing is permanent. And we’re all in constant transition, moving like orbs through the night air. With a new song titled “Red Flags,” the four-piece known as LAV.ISH reflect upon their own journeys with groovy, sticky, and electric production, dressed around a lacy melody and sick vocal tricks. “You were never one to say what’s on your mind,” reads the opening lyric. Through drawing upon a past romance, the group traces out a universal lesson about letting things go and creating nothing but good vibes. If nothing else, this is one helluva bop.

GLOSSER – “Last of the Good Times”

Some pop music has a way of immersing you in a hypnotic sonic experience. With their latest song, “Last of the Good Times,” up-and-coming duo GLOSSER draws the listener into a synth-scape that tingles the body and recharges the bones. As time slips through their fingertips, and they take stoke of those faded memories, the music ebbs and flows like an effervescent stream of light. “What I once was has changed somehow,” muses Riley Fanning. Production decorates as stars in a pitch black fabric, their words poking through with sharp precision. It’s enough to make you shiver.

Brian Walker – “Red Flags”

There’s something irresistible about Brian Walker‘s falsetto. The way he caresses the melody is soothing and tantalizing, threaded together with throbbing percussion. On “Red Flags,” Walker takes a very different stylistic and thematic approach, relying on a relationship’s toxic patterns to inform much of the lyrics. “You like to bring that drama / You like to play those games / And you leave me hanging like a comma,” he groans over a glistening backdrop. He then dances down the melody, the red-red-red-red flags stinging the eardrums. It’s downright addicting.

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