Album Reviews
Ahead of the release of I’m Not You, Ways Away had already teased us with a string of strong singles—’I Should Have Brought A Gun,’ ‘Pace Car,’ ‘Despairia,’ and ‘Fixed From The Jump.’ Yet somehow, the album's arrival still caught me off guard when it quietly landed on my Spotify feed in mid-May, with little fanfare.
But Ways Away’s third full-length more than deserves all the fanfare, accolades and praise you can throw at it. The album opens with the one-two punch of the above-mentioned ‘I Should Have Brought A Gun’ and ‘Pace Car,’ the latter featuring Chuck Ragan for an extra dose of intensity—and doesn’t miss a beat from there. ‘Customary Scars’ sounds like a song that Hot Water Music hasn’t gotten round to writing, while the chorus has Samiam written all over it.
The tempo drops with ‘Seen By You,’ a track that wouldn’t feel out of place on a lost Solea record, before picking up the pace in the second half. It’s a perfect lead-in to ‘Fixed From The Jump,’ one of the album’s hardest-hitting tracks.
The rest of 'I’m Not You' continues to impress: the brooding ‘Dizzy Arrow,’ the bordering on poppy ‘Despairia’ (featuring Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man), and a left-field but excellent cover of Type O Negative’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Me,’ bolstered by guest vocals from Donots’ Ingo Knollman, and the atmospheric closer that is ‘History Remembers Us.’
The collaboration between Samiam’s Sergie Loobkoff and Stick To Your Guns’ Jesse Barnett already proved successful on their 2020 debut, but their creative chemistry reaches new heights here. With the rhythm section rounded out by Jared Shavelson (BoySetsFire, Joyce Manor, Paint It Black) and Chad Darby (Samiam, Ship Thieves), Ways Away has delivered an album that’s as cohesive as it is compelling—a near-flawless effort that deserves your full attention.
I'm Not You tracklist:
- I Should Have Brought A Gun
- Pace Car (ft. Chuck Ragan)
- Customary Scars
- Seen By You
- Fixed from the Jump
- Something to Lean On
- Cosmic Knock
- Dizzy Arrow
- Despairia (ft. Eric Egan)
- I Don’t Wanna Be Me (ft. Ingo Knollman)
- History Remembers Us
Lacking the talent to actually play in a band, Tom decided he would write about bands instead. Turns out his writing skills are mediocre at best as well.
