Foundry Town Survivors “Blue Sky” (SINGLE)

Burgeoning talent is attracting a lot of people to the American underground right now, and whether you’re looking for something urban or bucolic, you can rest assured there’s going to be something to suit your taste out at the moment.

URL: https://foundrytownsurvivors.com/

Those who prefer the latter over the former wouldn’t be unhappy with the likes of Foundry Town Survivors’ mew single “Blue Sky” and its accompanying music video, both of which touch on some of the more prominent themes that made folk/rock such an interesting genre once upon a time – and might have a hand in it getting back into the spotlight once more. “Blue Sky” is all melody with little focus on rhythm, and its stoic unfurling of smart harmonies is getting the attention of critics everywhere right now.

These lyrics just don’t have the overwhelmingly politicized edge that a lot of Dylan influence they exhibit would normally impart, but this doesn’t hurt the performance here at all – quite the opposite, in all honesty. If this were going to stay the provocative statement piece that it is, Foundry Town Survivors knew they had to stylize the music with something a little more cutting and direct than the typical string/percussion interplay can normally support, and they were right to emphasize the electricity in the harmonies as much as they did. This isn’t a track dedicated to detail, but instead the decadence it can produce when given no filtration between artist and audience, which is the way I prefer my folk/rock, personally.

Jeff Peters mixed and mastered “Blue Sky,” and I think he deserves a lot of credit for the final product he’s submitted in this single. There’s nothing that feels forced into place, nor sounds like it has been constructed to boost the allure of the hook or vocal alone; contrarily, this is evenhandedness on steroids, alluding to an enthralling live show that, while I haven’t got to see yet, I can imagine would sound something like what I’m hearing in this track. There’s more oomph to the drive of the instrumentation than they need, but I think that was what Peters wanted for their sound in this release. When we’ve got more than we know what to do with, we know what a band can pump out without a pressurized backdrop, and I’m quite interested in what I’m hearing in this song.

Cerebral, provocative, and compositionally whole – “Blue Sky” is a single that’s pretty easy to fall in love with if you like the simpler side of pop/rock, and though they’re facing a competitive culture in the underground scene that birthed their professional profile, I do believe we’re going to keep hearing some credible work from Foundry Town Survivors as the year pushes on. What I’ve heard from them already has been concise and unique while still paying some tribute to the classic acts that got this band to where they are now, and in “Blue Sky,” they step into the future with more panache than I knew they could muster.

Mark Druery