Any song that sounds as if Stevie Wonder, instead of breaking through in the ’60s as a piano-playing, Motown wunderkind, is, in fact, a guitar-wielding Bostonite happening right now is music that needs further exploration. Right? Right!
Led by brothers Dylan and Connor Levinson Sons of Levin (geddit?) is a band that understands that there is still plenty of mileage to be had from those older, more established genres, and so they weave together rock and blues, soul and funk…the latter two being most prominent here… into songs that are both nostalgic in their familiarity and fresh in the distance that they put themselves from most music made in the modern commercial realm.
Guitars flick and flit through, beats are brilliantly busy, and basslines bring the groove, but the body of the song is formed by the deftly woven sparring of the keyboards, courtesy of Dana Goodwin and Jesse Mattison.
And the message? Taken from the titular scripture, we are reminded that “nothing is new under the sun” and that humanity faces the same threats, albeit in new guises, time and time again. It is through unity and love that we have survived these trials and tribulations. And we will again.
You gotta love a song that is not only fresh and fun and funky but also has you researching Hebrew words of wisdom from two and a half thousand years ago and realizing that the words found within have permeated popular culture for decades. From the opening quote of Platoon to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and from Hemingway’s title, The Sun Also Rises to its reference throughout Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. And, of course, the title of a Stevie Wonder instrumental, too, to which this song is undoubtedly a tip of the hat.
That there is nothing new under the sun is, indeed, an understatement.
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