The Bar Pilots have something brilliantly nostalgic about their Box of Bows that instantly transports you to the hazy days of the 90s with the alternative rock, but with a sharper and more modern touch. The instrumentals are moody, immediate, which is power pop with actual muscle in it, reminding you of bands like Matchbox 20 or Sponge, but dusted off with something grittier and shabbier. It is not a retread, but still it is not unknown and that is a tricky thing to do.
Here Rob Wessels and Vince Adame have created something that is coastal and rugged, the volcanic Hawaiian soul of the two, combined with the grittier feel of Portland. You can somehow hear both settings in the song the open spaces and the concrete, the surf and the city. The tunes are duly infectious, the type of music that gets in your head and stays there days, yet there is a sense of melancholy that makes it not feel so clean and safe.
The one thing that baffles me is how the song can be both retro and modern at the same time. It is not nostalgia itself, as they have stolen those 90s foundations of alternative rock and constructed something that stands squarely in the present. It is a real grit, the rawness which fits their sound well. This is music created by individuals who have definitely been on the stages and in their rehearsals rooms, perfecting their art until it is tight but never sterile.
Being a first single of their full-length album Hope and Anchor, the song Box of Bows creates a powerful sound. It presents the potential of The Bar Pilots in the best light possible- that is the ability to blend genres and eras in a way that comes out as their own. These two Portland-Hawaiian boys are certainly worth following and offer the unfiltered, heart-felt rock with the real momentum attached.