Written by: Dave Cantrell
Some things, it seems, are simply meant to be. We’ve all experienced it, whether it be of profound importance – the person being the most immediate/universal example – or some unique often circuitous but seemingly guided series of dots that leads to the ideal job at just the right time, the kind of happenstance that has one thinking things such as ‘If I hadn’t gone to the store at just that moment I wouldn’t have run into…’ or whatever the case may be, it’s one of the too-seldom instances where ‘fate’ offers itself as a believable force in our existence. While we’re not exactly sure of the circumstances behind the formation of the band Silverplanes, some details point to certain unavoidabilities of both the practical nature and those less obvious but whatever way the breakdown broke in their case, we’re awfully glad it did.
Formed in the 20-teens by singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Smart, drummer and backup vocalist Jesse (son of Aerosmith’s Joey) Kramer with bassist-keyboardist Ian Baca, Silverplanes, while likely claiming at least small advantage in terms of that Aerosmith connection (it’s that band’s frequent producer Jack Douglas, who’s also manned the board for John Lennon, Lou Reed, Miles Davis and scores more, that produces here as well), are nonetheless blessed with a sound that, to us, seems to reflect an intuitive grace and cohesion seldom heard in young rock groups that are on the brink of releasing their debut LP, which is what leads us to believe there’s something (far) more than familial circumstance at work here and, yes, that ‘something’ is almost certainly that frequently cited – but far less common than believed – thing known as ‘chemistry.’ Whatever accounts for it – and no one’s ever been able to pinpoint it, exactly – one knows it when one hears it and we most certainly hear it here in this latest single “Years to Awaken” off the soon-to-be-released (April 21st on MAKE Records) Airbus album.
While we’re going to simply let the song speak for itself regarding everything we just said, it bears mentioning how infrequently we here at SEM hear the level of ‘instant classic’ songwriting in such a new(ish) band as plays out here. While it seems odd to say, there’s almost something brash in how mature they sound, how assured, so much so one can imagine the gods in charge of such things looking down with a ‘how dare they?’ scowl on their faces but, we suspect, even they’ll be forced to submit to the incipient beauty within and will, by song’s end, be gently swaying along, eyes closed, smiling in that ‘ahh, this is nice’ smile all us mortals know so well. While there’s little doubt the three have paid their dues in this way or that – just working as hard as they had to have worked to reach this level this early makes that clear – it’s nonetheless still the case that Silverplanes’ sound is innately redolent of that unknowable X-factor fate, as if it were, indeed, meant to be.
