Anyone who ever said that good rock can come to you without heavy guitars doesn’t just sound silly; they clearly haven’t heard the stylings of one Jordan Wolfe in his new single “Different,” which blasts us with the kind of guitar gold that has been increasingly difficult to find in the underground and the mainstream the same in the last few years.
Rather than simply crushing us with a lot of brawn in “Different,” Wolfe is exploiting the presence of the guitar for everything it’s worth in this track, angling it as a seamless integrator for the percussion, vocals, and bassline. Instead of putting all of his rhythm stock in the role of the drums alone, he’s letting the guitar-born beat define the moodiness of these lyrics and, moreover, the statement that they’re collectively making. Paying mind to the classic standard in this genre isn’t a new idea by any measurement, but with regards to those who take the old guard seriously without wanting to recreate any of the righteousness of the old school outright, this is one of the more credible and inventive artists I’ve come across in the past year.
This beat is essentially inescapable, but that’s fine considering how much of a chest-pounding integrity it’s contributing to the big picture in this single. There are a couple of moments in which our singer is looking to lean on something, and rather than it being a synthetic component, it winds up being the strength of the groove, which is by far a more desirable choice from where I’m sitting. The hook isn’t the main attraction in “Different,” but instead something that works to frame the muscularity of the riffing as we find it at the eye of the sonic storm.
ANGHAMI: https://play.anghami.com/song/1033286775
I get the idea that the last thing Wolfe wants is to sound like someone who doesn’t know how to make a stacked rock audio track in 2022, and without sounding like he’s trying too hard he still manages to give us a very detail-centered performance in this piece that I would recommend to rockers young and old alike. I can only imagine “Different” sounding even smoother on stage, and with any luck, I’ll have the chance to find out for myself a lot sooner than later.
If this is a representation of who the singer, songwriter, and rock juggernaut Jordan Wolfe really is, you’re going to regret not checking out his new single this winter. “Different” doesn’t flirt with the decadence of a bygone era, but instead takes the hedonism and machismo of the music and repurposes it for something a bit more full-bodied and collective in this performance, and I can’t get enough of it. There’s no denying the talent that Wolfe is bringing with him into the studio right now, and being that he’s made the bold choice to make physicality the specialty he’s going to highlight in “Different,” I can see a lot of crossover metal and hard rock fans being more than a little perked up with what they’ll hear in this track.
Chadwick Easton