If the fabulous “Strip Mall Jesus” showed us that John Deering was someone keeping the spirit of scuzzy rock and roll, as well as infectious and slightly oddball New Wave, alive, “Gotta Get Away” finds him guiding his sonic plow along a very different musical furrow.
For the most part, we find him in a more singer-songwriter vibe, though, of course, he isn’t going to sound like every other plaid-shirted acoustic strummer; this is, after all, John Deering that we are talking about, so even when flirting with such crowded and conformist territory, he does so very much on his own terms.
Initially built of minimal beats, hypnotic, and coiled piano lines, a wonderful falserro vocal and lots of space, this narrative of a Ukrainian father’s shared moments with his daughter as he tries to protect her from the turmoil of war then explodes into excellent, off-kilter gnashing riffs and spiraling psychedelic guitar lines before returning to its understated and pathos-filled space.
It’s a brilliant and beguilingly odd beast, more fragmented and floating than his previous singles, more poignant but no less potent than his more driven songs. There is something heartbreaking and haunting echoing from the core of the music —a crushing sadness that only comes from a parent worried that they might not be able to protect their child.
Only John Deering could match the gloriously groovy with the mournfully melancholy; only he could make such opposites attract and do so this attractively. John Deering is a one-of-a-kind; accept no imitations!
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