We live, seemingly, in a world where the singer-songwriter is dominant. You can hardly lob a James Taylor record in any direction without hitting some budding troubadour waxing lyrical about his gap year revelations or some boho-chick in a wide-brimmed hat pushing three chords to their strummed breaking point. Most of them fail to grasp that we have, to a large degree, heard it all before…and probably done better. It’s all very well being inspired by, say, Jackson Browne or Joni Mitchell but there is no point trying to sound like them; you aren’t even going to come close.
As Sun Way Street neatly prove with “Kingdom”, there is a place between the singer-songwriter’s solo sparsity and the full band sound that allows for a new take on things. For “Kingdom” is undoubtedly a song born of the troubadour sound but the way that this duo then add poise and polish via shimmering electric guitar lines and gentle beats, distant percussion and, when the moment requires it, some tangible sonic weight, is what makes the difference.
The result is a song with a foot in each camp, able to embrace the singer-songwriter style but with all the sonic embellishments of the band environment. It is a song full of dynamic ebb and flow, rising energies, falling grace, gentle tones, lush textures, anthemic highs, and subtle understatement. And all that in just over four minutes. How cool is that?
