Elevator
Light One Candle
The New Tribe’s new ‘double A-sided’ Elevator/Light One Candle single is a vibrant and powerful platter of driving, groove-oriented pop, unlike anything else you’re likely to hear this fall. Signaling a new era for the band, the two songs embrace the group’s psychedelic American roots and create a vibe and sonic landscape that seems entirely fresh yet instantly familiar; hook-laden but experimental, concise but cosmic.
Side A, ‘Elevator,’ hisses into being with backward cymbals and disembodied voices that melt into Bo Diddley beats, soulful verses, and chant along choruses. On the vocals, brothers Adam (drums) and Eric (guitar) Sarmiento trade verses and harmonize on the choruses, highlighting some of the vocal versatility of the band. The middle section’s elliptically ascending arrangement creates a pleasant fugue state of mind. Raga-esque guitar work that nods to the solos of the early, grittier Jerry Garcia give way to a cloud of choral voices that rain down and evaporate up into the final raucous chorus and percussive coda. It’s a journey in miniature, an odyssey packed into 4 minutes and change.
Light One Candle, the side B track, kicks off with wobbly guitar chimes and a doo wop vocal figure that immediately takes up residence in the listener’s ear. The laid back groove and jazz chords of the song may bring to mind Thin Lizzy classics or the edgy quasi-disco of the late ‘70s Rolling Stones, but the lyrical content here speaks to the social and political challenges of the present moment. “God knows we’ve had enough of feeling that the world is heartless,” but “going down is how we rise above,” the Sarmiento brothers sing.
These two songs exemplify how music — soulful, mighty, colorful music — can empower the weary heart, enliven bodies weighed down with anxiety, and renew faith in the world and Life. This is music meant as a technology for Living. Songs that can make one’s body and one’s thoughts dance.