Vanderwolf always seems to catch me off guard. I think it is having a surname that sounds like a German, 80’s heavy metal band and the fact that he looks like Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter (as far as I can tell anyway, it’s all hair and glasses), I always expect something…well, less clever.
If “A Time to Die” was a surprisingly graceful slice of neo-soul, with just the right amount of pop-rock energy to lift things up, this time out, he gives us “Twice in a Lifetime,” a song that beats along in a buoyant and beautiful fashion, sounding like a cross between late-era Beatles and a strings-free Electric Light Orchestra (which is poignant because at a distance, he would pass for Jeff Lynne, too. I guess he just has a really classy look!)
Filmmaker George Panagakos adds a brilliant video that underlines the song’s theme but also suggests something about the nature of society and how it might treat its icons and prophets if they were to return today.
But as the song is mainly a critique of how the Western world mythologizes its pop stars, even to the point where they lose their lives trying to live up to the image created for them by the backroom boys in the marketing department, I’ll end with this. Vanderwolf…yeah, he’s alright, I guess. (That should keep him safe for a while.)
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