PREMIERE | Air Review, "You Won't Be Coming Home"

Air Review standing in the sunset awaiting the twilight; photographed by Jordan Smith.

In the past six years since Air Review released the lauded album Low Wishes; the group has contended with a series of challenges, tragedies and life difficulties that have contributed to the formation of their new album aptly titled How We Got By. The group's own Dragan Jakovljevic struggled with expanding his family, the wife of Jeff Taylor lost her father to brain cancer, the girlfriend of Richard Carpenter lost her mother and Doug Hale lost a foster child to a bureaucratic system — which in turn inspired the heartbreaking and painstaking single "You Won't Be Coming Home". With a subdued and atmospheric production (aided by producers Matt Pence and Scott Solter); Air Review together collectively channels motifs of loss in a language that reaches outward with open arms for a sense of reasoning and resolve in a material universe that rarely to never provides us mortals with the answers we seek (in the wake of events that we have little to no control over).

Air Review’s “You Won’t Be Coming Home” is emblematic of those moments where it feels as if time just freezes entirely as one processes the weight and gravity of the situation at hand. The synths employed by the band respectfully emulate the states of melancholy when life as you knew it becomes irrevocably altered in an instant. Hale and the gang hold tight to the idea of keeping those near and dear close for forever while accepting the abrupt changes with mournful, heavy hearts. The sparse arrangement keeps an open air at work that allows the effective emotional resonance to connect deeply with the audience in ways that each individual listener responds to according to their own experiences and states of being. “Coming Home” is a requiem for all that could have been; a lamentation for all the homecomings that could have been that life denies us according to the story lines and narratives that exist beyond our own limitations of understanding.

The endurance and aesthetics of Air Review; photographed by Jordan Smith.

Air Review offered up some exclusive commentary on the new single:

“You Won’t Be Coming Home" is the song that introduces the story of Bobby (my foster child who wasn't able to stay my foster child) on the record. It is about navigating the feelings of loss and worrying that he wouldn’t understand why he had to leave. Sonically we wanted the recording to have lots of space for each part to breathe and the vocals/lyrics to achieve the most impact. Listen to the commentary for more details.

Air Review's album How We Got By will be available June 21 via Velvet Blue Music.