The Wild Waiting

The Wild Waiting – Stay Gold
This is a statement. Few bands brandish enough confidence to record such an ambitious EP like The Wild Waiting has shown with their debut Stay Gold. These are six songs aiming dead on for territory typically reserved for serious pop acts on their third or fourth album. The Wild Waiting’s deceptively simple songs utilize traditional structures and expand on them enormously with a variety of keyboard sounds and tastefully employed effects. The production makes surprising sense of the band’s massive sound and finds a pleasing balance between the different musical voices the band uses. The Wild Waiting describes themselves as a slightly retro oriented affair with a modern twist, but what’s going here is clever re-invention rather than homage. While much will sound familiar to longtime music fans, any overt influences aren’t readily identifiable. The Wild Waiting’s debut is a thick blend of melody, vocal pyrotechnics, and youthful vitality practically falling over itself to get out.
It begins auspiciously with “All My Life”. The band’s intelligent choice for a first single embraces all of the band’s best musical elements and its powerful keyboard driven sweep gives it a memorable sound. The vocals don’t explore an enormous octave range, but the song never asks that they do. Instead, they deliver the song’s plain-spoken poetry with tremendous verve. The vocals are a highlight of the EP’s second song “Burn with Me”. They stylishly invoke the dark longings in the heart of the song without ever laying the vocal atmospherics on too thick. The rhythm section adds a lot to this track and establishes a strong groove from the outset.
Pop drives “Say the Right Things”, but groove is a factor once again. The rhythm section’s hard hitting attack pulls the band closer to rock than anywhere else. The melodies are key to grounding the song in something deeper than a 4/4 swing and another strong vocal brings even more to the song. The nervy vocal on “2AM Fearless” is the primary reason for that song’s success, but the arrangement will surprise some with how closely it conforms with the lightly predatory sheen coloring the lyrics. “Someone to Go With” brings the EP back to sunnier surfaces, but there’s a deeper maturity in this song that discerning listeners will pick up on with repeated hearings. The album’s title track concludes Stay Gold in magnificent fashion with its dramatic build. The evolution from a low-key acoustic track into an elegant, grandiose piece of pop brilliance will stick in people’s brains after the first time and their admiration will only grow from there.
It’s easy to admire Stay Gold. For longtime music lovers, hearing a young band obviously setting their sights so high is a charge, a needed reminder that blooming generations will take up the banner for honest, entertaining art. The Wild Waiting asks a lot from the listener but reward your attention in a big way.
9 out of 10 stars. - Roy Swafford

It's rare to find commercially minded fare with such openhearted sincerity. The Wild Waiting might welcome the fortune and blandishments mainstream success brings, but their pop-drenched outings never sound studied or calculated. The six songs on their debut EP Stay Gold are impressively polished offerings, aimed for broad-based appeal, and never chintzy. Instead, they condense cinematic arrangements into the sub-four minute songs filled to the point of bursting with musings one expects from singer/songwriters, not pop tunesmiths. They move like mini-symphonies or chamber pieces using far from baroque instrumentation. Guitars, keyboards, drums, bass, voice, and tastefully employed effects are the only colors The Wild Waiting need to fill in their first canvas. It’s a testament to their talents that even in the nation’s toughest live music market, the East Coast, these young musicians stand out so well.

Beginning the EP with "All My Life", the band's first single, is putting their best foot forward. The song has a deeper groove than anything else on Stay Gold thanks to superb drumming bringing a strongly dramatic air to its changes. "Burn with Me" follows the opener's example in many ways. It might lack the distinctive movement heard in the opening track, but the vocal harmonies are stronger and the lyrics have a darker hue dovetailing nicely into the musical mood. The Wild Waiting pulls back some on the vocal pyrotechnics for "Say The Right Words", but the song's comparatively stripped-back approach doesn't translate to a drop off in quality. The band's guitar work, consigned to a supporting role through much of the first two tracks, starts to assert itself on this song and it makes for a nice contrast with the EP's opening songs.

The Wild Waiting explore darker shades on “2AM Fearless”, a far grittier blast of rock than any other track. The atmosphere captures the late night carousing depicted in the lyrics and has a credible attack, but the song’s peak comes with its impressively powerful choruses. “Someone To Go With” might sound clumsily sentimental in the hands of duller musicians, but The Wild Waiting do a superb job portraying the life-affirming energies of youthful possibility without ever relying too heavily on cliché. Their avoidance of cliché, however, is never as pronounced as it is on the album’s final track, “Stay Gold”. It has a surprisingly quasi-orchestral build crossed with the band’s basic pop rock attack, but they explore softer textures as well. It’s certainly the album’s most ambitious moment and ends the release on a deeply satisfying note.

This is a debut EP glowing with the band’s impressive potential. The Wild Waiting have realized their possibilities much earlier than similar bands and that fact alone suggests that this is an unit capable of making many fine albums and surprising us often. Stay Gold has the unmistakable feel of an opening salvo – this is a band that’s just getting started. Get in on the ground floor of goodness today.

8 out of 10 stars. - Cyrus Rhodes

This four piece from the Boston area has honed their penchant for European flavored power pop to an impressive extent for a debut effort. Stay Gold’s six tracks are fully realized musical works with melodic depth and a tour de force vocal from lead singer Gav. The production is focused on accentuating the band’s melodic and vocal strengths, but the rhythm section and swaths of strategically aimed guitar work add considerable color to otherwise outstanding songs. The EP has a discernible flow thanks to the band’s masterful job sequencing tracks; thanks to their attentiveness, Stay Gold opens and ends quite memorably.
“All My Life” is the EP’s first single. Later songs certainly could have made an impact given similar exposure, but releasing and positioning this track as listeners’ first exposure to Stay Gold reveals a larger purpose. The layered arrangement hinges largely on propulsive drumming and a thick blanket of keyboards to carry the melody. Other instruments like guitar and bass provide practical and ornamental support, but every instrument is turned towards the purpose of communicating the song’s engaging message. “Burn with Me” hits a subtler note without ever sacrificing any of the band’s melodic intensity. It’s deployed differently here and the lyrics are likewise less bombastic and anthemic than in the preceding track. “Say the Right Words” is the closest that Stay Gold comes to a straight up rock song while still retaining the same sonic blueprint defining the first two tracks. “2AM Fearless” shares the preceding songs rock leanings, but it’s more clearly aimed for a specific audience and its music and message are tailored exclusively in that direction. It is interesting to hear the band’s lyrics take a darker, more dangerous turn here to counterbalance the general glow of health pervading the surrounding tracks.
“Someone To Go With” is full of the aforementioned positivity, but the band’s point of view is never simplistic. Despite whatever disappointments might arise, The Wild Waiting’s songs talk about engaging life and the value of continuing to move over each obstacle. The vocals capture every ounce of that lust for life. The album’s conclusion, “Stay Gold”, is a magnificent title track that somehow takes the ambition of the opener and expands on it with its startling contrast of light and shade in the acoustic guitar driven passages and the song’s epic choruses. Despite any sonic pageantry, The Wild Waiting never loses their way. The consideration given to each individual movement is palpable and never smacks of self indulgence. It ends the EP on a spectacular high and adds an exclamation point to the band’s potential. It’s clear that The Wild Waiting has many more mountains to climb, but their artistic strength is amply demonstrated on this debut release. The needed elements for massive success are here. Their songwriting vision never sounds like some stripped back four piece rock band – instead, the band’s songs play like products from four musicians willing to try anything once.

9 out of 10 stars. - Larry Mullis