I wish we were drinking for fun, for the right reasons, you know? Happy hour has gradually transformed into necessity hour. I don’t mean to isolate any sober persons and non-drinkers, but I do believe the sentiment is pretty universal. Anything to take the edge off. And on that note, NYC quartet Giggly Boys would like to see our weeks off with a string of new songs they’re premiering with Ears To Feed, appropriately titled, “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere.” The first track of the series, “South Of Nowhere,” is a sultry ode to grit in the face of adversity, to dodging bullets, to tough times making tougher people.
A reverb-laden guitar lead glides, plaintive, atop an upbeat, yet equally dispirited rhythm section, like a watercraft chasing the sunset on a distant horizon. Another hour of daylight, please. It remains in the shade. Vocalist Erik Schwertfeger, however, offers up a beam of sun, of hope, of steadfastness, with his refusal to succumb to the perils of land and sea. “Stormy seas / Will make good sailors,” he cries amid a calamitous bridge that climbs like the tides of hurricane season. The chaos of the instruments will not overtake the resolution of the vocals. And in the face of danger, the band knows its destination, as Schwertfeger repeats it again and again, like a foghorn’s call, in the chorus, now serving as outro. Who’s ready for another beer?