I tend to go on a lot about bands that can just show up anywhere and play under any conditions, because, well,  not everybody can or will.

Some musicians walked into my non-descript, off-white, Fight Club style office and said “you want me to sing into your webcam?” with a look on their face like a clown was going to jump out of a closet and molest them at any minute, ushering in a new low in reality television. However, some people showed up, looked around, and said, “hey Jimbo, we don’t have your acoustic bass– you just want to play on this 6 string?”

Jason, Browan, and Jimbo just went with it and sounded amazing.

When they hit the harmonies on this song and “Streetlights,” I actually felt it. And I don’t mean “felt it” in a guy-who’s-comfortable-talking-about-his-emotions kind of way. I mean I actually felt the vibrations pushing the air in the room. It was like feeling a sixth sense for the first time, overwhelmingly powerful and comforting, like the first half of an oxycontin milkshake handmade by Jesus himself.

In that room, they sounded like a chorus of barely road weary angels, but I suspect the Bible would have been less impressive if the angels had to be digitally compressed and uploaded onto youtube also.  

I first heard Jason sing this song a few months before the album came out earlier this year. It was just him and Browan playing an acoustic show. A few people were taping it, which Jason didn’t mind, but when he got to this song, he asked them to stop, since it hadn’t been released yet, and of course, they did.

The next day I scoured the internet to see if I could find a recording of it, partially because I was curious if he had been able to keep it under wraps, and also, because it’s a fucking amazing song, and I wanted to hear it again.

I couldn’t find it anywhere. No trace of it. Considering this is a band that plays, on average, 200 shows a year across the country and into Europe, that’s a hell of a testament to the loyalty of their fans. Jason’s one of those guys that puts so much of himself into a song, that you can’t help but feel you know him.

You may not know who he’s singing about or the exact situation, but you can feel the emotional sincerity pouring out of him.

There’s a fine line between writing a song everyone can connect to and just churning out the usual lowest common denominator sing-along bullshit that is instantly familiar, but Jason occupies that small space.

“She smelled like cigarettes and wine.” I know that girl, you know that girl– hell, we all know that girl. Well, probably not the exact girl, but we’ve all known a few, and even more so, we all know the feeling he’s singing about. Even if you couldn’t understand English, you’d know exactly what is going on in this song.

If for some reason you don’t own the album, get it here.