Yardan and Andrew Hendryx have a lot of history together, and in the new single “Buzzin’ Fly,” they bring their chemistry into the studio for anyone who appreciates quality Americana to get excited about. There’s always a challenge in making a cover song feel and sound like your own piece of material, but if these two are able to prove anything in this track, it’s that such a task goes a lot better when you’ve got someone with an almost familial-like comradery with to share in creating gorgeous harmonies. There’s a lot more to the complexities that make this a really compelling new single for fans of the Americana sound, but all in all, they do Tim Buckley proud, and that’s not an easy feat.
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When he’s singing, Yardan isn’t afraid to show us the kind of emotion that some of his contemporaries would never be able to bear to the audience without surrendering over a lot more virtuosity in the arrangement. In other words, because there are no distractions here, no over the top showings of strength nor muscular instrumental breakdowns that lead us into another interpretation of the narrative at hand, the lyrics and the voice bringing them to the audience can stand on their own in a way most verses never can. This, if anything, is the purest way that anyone could have covered this song, which is a testament in itself to how seriously this musician is taking the creation of his debut single.
The rhythm section in the mix doesn’t give up for a second, but instead picks up some steam as we near the conclusion of the song, which isn’t something that you’re going to hear in a lot of other covers of “Buzzin’ Fly.” There’s a general sense of urgency that Yardan wants to capitalize on, and whether it’s the thrust of the percussion or the nuanced buffering that the bassline is giving us on the backend of the mix, we’re getting as much power out of this performance as one could likely expect to hear out of something presented on the live stage. The mild rock elements buried within the aesthetical compounds in this single are something I want Yardan to explore more in the future, but for now, he offers himself as a troubadour capable of immense emotional depth in multiple departments here.
There aren’t many debuts of any genre that are as forthcoming in terms of artistic personality as “Buzzin’ Fly” is, and given that this is, after all, a cover song, that’s saying a lot about who its star performer is. Yardan is someone who comes off as a lot more casual than he is layered, but the style of his play is the exact opposite. It’s going to take some time to get to know who he really is, but if there’s a decent place to start in that acquaintanceship, it is undisputedly “Buzzin’ Fly.” Americana is back with a vengeance, and this is a prime example of its influence producing something brilliant.
Chadwick Easton