“They didn’t call us the wind for nothing,” begins ‘Kings of the Road’, the opening track on The Ocean Rose, a new album by Portland, Maine band Wildflower. It’s a line that encapsulates the spirit of the record (released by California label Night Bloom Records), namely warm 70s-influenced songs that draw from both folk and soft rock to search for solace and comfort amidst various states of flux—from long drives and cross-country trips to the changing seasons and the bittersweet impermanence of everything in our lives.
Led by singer and guitarist Adrian O’Barr, Wildflower also comprises of Matthew Maiello (rhodes, piano, organ, synth, wind & sax), Jason Eckerson (bass), Roby Moulton (drums & rhodes) and Alex Winthrop (electric guitar, slide, whammy bar), as well as occasional backing vocals by Kacey Johansing and Michael Nau. The ensemble coem together to creates something rich and reflective, bringing to life an introspective balance between melancholy and wonder.
This duality extends to the very title of the new record. It’s not initially clear what the rose in The Ocean Rose refers to. The floral symbol of romantic beauty, or the rising sea levels that are a symptom of our continued destruction of the world? Indeed, the blurb describes the record as “a miniature world of nostalgia and wonder […] interwoven with and haunted by the realities of a changing climate.” But the predominant emotion is a positive one, each song bathed in a mellow glow that’s as reassuring and poignant as the late summer sun. As the blurb continues, this is an album:
“Filled with West coast fever dreams, blooming summer roses, and the simple pleasures of life on the Atlantic ocean, the album details a search for an elusive paradise on earth, no matter how fleeting or small.”
It is this grounding in physical place that blurs the distinction between emotions on the record. The most beautiful landscapes are marked by the coexistence of loss and joy, the marvellous present stalked by a looming future, itself always slipping into the past. The songs in the first half find Wildflower attempt to conquer this sensation through forward motion, feeling the wind in their hair as they road trip from Maine’s Atlantic coast to the Californian Pacific. They didn’t call them the wind for nothing.
The second part of the album finds gentle contentment in the everyday beauty of the present moment at home, something captured wordlessly in the woozy, aptly titled instrumental ‘Evening Falls in Paradise.’ But it’s another song, ‘Dog’s Breath’, that addresses the subject most directly. Speaking with Under the Radar, O’Barr says the track is “essentially a love song to the present moment,” unfurling patiently in an early morning hush, as O’Barr documents the slow onset of autumn and that subtle, sad and somehow lovely ache of the last days of summer.
when the first cold wind blew in
through my front door
i went out on the porchthe light of the morning sun
rising on the ocean
The Ocean Rose is out now via Night Bloom Records and you can get it from the Wildflower Bandcamp page.
