Something very comforting about “Wander Still” – almost as though you have found a compass exactly when you thought you are going in circles. Being the title song on the new album of Ulrich Jannert, it eschews precisely what he does so well, in turning the most existential questions of life into a song that is like the most beloved old friend who just silently walks next to you when things are unclear.
There is a beautiful weight in the voice of Jannert, of someone who has been through the doubts and emerged at the other end with clarity that has been achieved by hard effort. It is rich in a certain way, a sort of staunch, rooted belief, which seems to affirm something true, when years of thought alone make one realize it. And as the song seems to play out, the arrangement begins slowly, almost as though at the beginning of morning the light waking up. Each pace of rhythmic layer pushes the voyage on, toward a state of apprehension of something that approaches faith.
The soundscape per se is very welcoming and comforting, a mixture of soft soul rock with some folk and country that reminds one of returning to a known room after a long absence. The piano and guitar coexist around each other as if two roads eventually converge, and since Jannert created the song on his own, the entire affair has this ideal quality of deliberate smoothness and natural, worn-out feel. There is a faint bluesy undercurrent going through it all, not harsh, only enough to make you remember about the crossroads you have been at before the ones that have been silently moulding you.
Among the eighteen songs in the album, “Wander Still” is positioned between songs such as I Walked through Fire and Butterfly Soul, which are dealing with various aspects of change and strength. Track like There’s a shadow on my shoulder and Mind over matter explore the depths of self-understanding and have sweeping melodies, and tracks like Not too late for you wrap up the motivational message in catchy memorable melodies. They read in some way like chapters in a story about becoming, of being messy, hopeful, real.
What lingers about Wander Still, though, is that it is a beautiful contradiction, that you can be wandering and at the same time feel rooted, that you can be searching and already have the answers within you. It is a song of anyone who is standing on the brink of something new, they are not sure, but there they are courageous. Jannert does not tell you how to walk, he just reminds you that you have been having this internal compass all along, that you need to have faith in it.
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