Some songs seem to defy generic tags or categorization—not because they don’t align with specific sounds or styles but because such demarcations seem irrelevant. Those songs are the ones with mass appeal, which defy expectations, ones which seem to appeal to everyone’s comfort zones and which are not to be hemmed in by the tribal instincts of most music fans. They are songs which already feel familiar to the listener, echoing some classic sonic move or much-loved musical vibe. “Let This Storm Pass” is just such a song.
Sure, it is easy to point to specific sonic elements – a delicate Americana sound, country pedal steel sonics, intimate balladic lyrics – but that is just detail. For me, the thing the song does best is wrap itself in some gorgeous sonic textures and tones, drifting atmospheres and lilting beats. Most of all, it is that gentle yet growing vocal beauty when delivering a chorus, one built of a clever combination of lead vocals, broader choral washes and a second delivery which moves from an underlining close harmony to a vocal entity in its own right as the song builds weight and wonder.
And if the vocal treatments remind you of songs cut from similar sonic cloth, particularly the dynamic journey of Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” it is not because of any plagiarism or plundering of past glories, but because The Hill has learned a thing or two about musical dynamics, positive pathos, and seductive sonics from the great and the good of an earlier golden age, and learned well.
