The latest single from the Canadian group, Wintersleep, is a wonderfully understated slowburner that elicits images of sweeping, expansive vistas at twilight. Crafted from rootsy guitar and piano there is a timeless quality to the song with a deeply etched melody like a heart carved into the bark of a tree. The band allow the song to calmly unfurl before revealing a chorus that gracefully catches you in it’s warm embrace.
As expected from a band on their seventh album, “Forest Fire” is the sound of a supremely confident band who know how to play to their strengths. With soft swells of slide guitar and Murphy’s delicate vocal melodies the band add subtle textures that still sound fresh and inviting.
The sense of nature evoked by the song was intentional as frontman Paul Murphy explains. “‘Forest Fire’ is a love song at its core. I wrote the lyrics in the summer of 2016. There was a lot of wildfires in BC over the past few summers so maybe that influenced the first lines of the song. From there I just kind of followed the idea/motif of things being engulfed. There’s a light and dark, push and pull to life and love and the lyrics are kind of abstract but I guess I’m trying to encapsulate that feeling at some level. This was one of the first songs we demoed for the record. The melody reminds me of something from an era bygone and there was something about creating a series of natural images or scenes that enhances the feeling you get from the melody against the chords.”
Wintersleep‘s new album, In the Land Of, is released on 29 March.