Blending a college-rock-on-ketamine groove with shimmering dream-pop haze, ‘Never Had’ is that rare thing: instantly addictive, yet understated and uncomplicated. No sonic tricks, no faddish moves, no sucker-punches or showsboating just a song that drifts and meanders along, as much mood as melody, atmosphere woven into art.
And to understand why it sounds so raw and emotive, you have to dig into the inspiration behind it…unlike many songs today, merely neat lyrics welded onto a cool tune, this is a song where you feel one couldn’t exist without the other, each finding solace in the other. Written after emerging from a long-term relationship, it is a cathartic song; it is about coming up for air, seeing the light, the shedding of emotional burdens – an experience that is often a complicated and bittersweet process of liberation.
More about texture than structure, the song is tethered only by unfussy drums and finds gentle propulsion largely by the vocals, a voice as an instrument as well as an exercise in emotive communication. It drifts rather than drives, floats rather than forces the issue, and Charlie Sly finds himself the captain of an ephemeral ship ebbing and flowing on musical tides.
DIY in the truest sense, ‘Never Had’ is a gorgeous piece of sonic subtlety, my first introduction to this maker of mellifluous music and certainly not my last.
Soundcloud
YouTube
Instagram
TikTok
