Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors: Medicine

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors: Medicine

By Brian Rock

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors bring a spark of warmth to this frigid season with their fourth full length release, Medicine. Starting with the sparse, acoustic, “American Beauty,” Drew sings, “Her blue eyes shone in the summer sun, her kiss felt like a loaded gun. Wish I had held her longer.” Acknowledging that summer (or summer loves) can’t last forever, this song nevertheless admits that when the days turns cold, we all yearn for warmer moments.

With influences from Gram Parsons to Ryan Adams, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors draw from the cream of the crop of the singer/songwriter tradition. Spending equal time crafting insightful lyrics and memorable melodies, Drew & The Neighbors have created an album that is comforting and yet unexpected.

“Tightrope” ponders the struggles of balancing one’s yin and yang. In “Here We Go,” Drew lets his hair down and embraces his funky side. With syncopated rhythms and textured instrumentation, Drew tries to untangle the ineffable web of relationship nuance while just “trying to make some sense of it all tonight.” With great lines like, “It all seemed pretty plausible, but it became impossible. The promises you made, but you got betrayed; and all the things that you still don’t know at the end of the day…” this song almost makes the minefield of couple’s communication seem fun. The band then turns up the percussion a notch on the anthemic, “Shine Like Lightning.” Reminding us of the light that shines within us all, Drew sings, “We’re gonna shine like lightning (Hey! Hey!) even if our back’s against the wall.”

Taking a step back for some introspection, “Avalanche” recalls in theme and tone the Southern California country rock of the seventies. “Heartbreak” turns further within to take on the most addressed topic in all of recorded music. But the ethereal instrumentation and harmonies raise a typical breakup song into a transcendental moment of clarity: “There’s a thousand ways to say I love you; but there’s only one way to walk out the door.” Drew meets the pain of the moment head on. No “what ifs” or “could have beens,” this song is comforting precisely because it doesn’t hide from the intensity of the emotion. It admits that our life is changed by the moment (“Ain’t it strange how a heartbreak changes everything,”) but recognizes that life goes on; just as the song goes on but “sometimes the melody changes.” To soften the blow of love lost, Drew and company play a soothing, modern day waltz for “You’ll Always Be My Girl.” Whether literally or figuratively, the song creates an added sense of comfort following “Heartbreak.”

Drew rediscovers his funky stick (if you have to ask what a funky stick is, you probably don’t have one.) for “Sisters Brothers.” Singing “We gotta fight for one another,” Drew and company remind us that we’re all brothers and sisters to each other. So who or what is left to fight? Drew solves that riddle for us by adding, “Fear only goes where it’s invited to stay.” “The Last Thing We Do,” follows with a giddy, piano driven stream of consciousness call to make things better. The melancholy “Ain’t Nobody Got It Easy” seems slightly out of place after the previous two songs, but with digital files a quick drag and drop between “Avalanche” and “Heartbreak” helps this song fit in with the ebb and flow of the album. More fittingly, Drew whistles while he works on the optimistic, “I’ve Got You.” For the album’s coda, Drew waxes philosophic with “When It’s All Said And Done.” Although no one can say for sure what will happen when life’s final scores are tabulated, Drew promises his love that “when it’s all said and done, I’ll still be your lover.” And knowing that we are still loved, despite our mistakes is a warming and comforting thought. And that is good Medicine.

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