Flashback to summer 2015.
Me, sitting on a Thalys train heading from Paris to Düsseldorf. Early morning sunlight glittering through the sporadic bushes and trees lining the tracks that cut through the French countryside of flowers and farmland.
My earbuds were in and my music was on shuffle. On came Trails and Ways’ “Skeletons”, an impulse download that I’d never really listed to until that moment. Yet this memory would come to serve as the perfect way to define the sound of their 2015 album Pathology: the soundtrack to an adventure through selcouth places and foreign soil.
Today came with the release of Trails and Ways’ new album Own It. As soon as I heard the first chords of track one, I breathed a sigh of relief that their music still invoked the same feeling of wonder in me as it did back on that European train ride. Not to say they didn’t switch things up, because this album has a very more relaxed vibe. When one closes their eyes and listens to the sun-soaked guitar stums of “How Do I Turn”, a beachy, Spanish paradise comes to mind. However, the introspective lyrics have a kind of gravity that seems to contradict the overall carefree tone of the music, asking “Could you teach me to live without my things? How do I do it? How do I do it?”
This phenomenon of simplicity contrasting with soul-searching internal struggle fits perfectly with the message the band is trying to convey: that they believe in a need for a fight against capitalism, as they expressed on Twitter.
our new album dreams of the end of capitalism, and I owe that dream to two legendary teachers from afar: @GraceLeeBoggs and @ursulakleguin
— keith bb (@TRAILSANDWAYS) October 7, 2016
“Intuition”, one of the more upbeat songs of the album, features interesting synths while still maintaining the aforementioned feeling of a desire for the absense of c. The trance of clever music and reflective lyricism makes for a song not to skip.
Overall, Own It garners 4/5 stars. Trails and Ways is a band that you don’t want to miss out on. Listen to the album here:
Bandcamp:Â https://trailsandways.bandcamp.com/album/own-it
iTunes:Â https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/own-it/id1159117867?app=itunes
Spotify:Â https://open.spotify.com/album/0HJih0xzFPfLmkXk822xSF
