As the final instalment of his six-shot salvo of sonic loveliness, Vanderwolf drops his most ambitious and perhaps most important single of the project. “The Path of Love” sees him taking the hippy ideology and bringing it bang up to date by pushing it through a rock ‘n’ soul sound, one richly adorned with everything from acoustic understament and glorious gospel harmonies, searing rock and roll guitar breaks, and plenty of dynamic switches and changes to keep things interesting.
But it is perhaps the intent of the song that is most important, which sees him heading out along his own sonic hippy trail, which links the slowly awakening Western mindset with ancient Eastern wisdom —a neat reflection of the song’s Occidental sass and Oriental serenity. Perhaps it is now that we find ourselves in such dark and troubled times that we need to return to such thought processes, not just the ones that inspired events like the Summer of Love, but the thousands of years of teaching that inspired it.
It’s a song that reflects Vanderwolf’s rebellious nature, because in a time of greed and growing authoritarianism, of entrenched ideas and a societal fracturing, what could be more rebellious than singing a song of unity and compassion, empathy, and love?
Interestingly, it is a song whose roots have been lying dormant amongst Vanderwolf’s works-in-progress for a decade, waiting for inspiration to strike and the right people to find their way into the creative process. That day is here, and the song has finally found its perfect, powerful, poignant form.
Timing, as they say, is everything.
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