Rolling out of the silence like a train ripping through open pastureland, Drew Cooper’s “Best of Me” kicks off with an electrifying intro that immediately lets us know just how freewheeling a jam we’re about to get into. The guitars gallop alongside the drums effortlessly, joining in a vicious groove that will make anyone want to sync their hips to the sway of the percussive beat. Cooper’s voice enters the picture smoothly and starts to shape the melodic core of the song, and before we know what’s what, it’s as though we’ve been transported to a pastoral plain free of the daily stresses that come with an urban lifestyle. The spirit of Americana is alive and well here, and it’s guaranteed to get listeners excited about indie country once more.
The verses in “Best of Me” aren’t particularly virtuosic, but I’d be lying if I said that they weren’t intricately arranged around the rhythm of the instrumentation. Everything, and I mean everything revolves around the swift rollicking groove of the drums, and while Cooper’s vocal colorizes the narrative in the words better than anything else possibly could have, I can’t be sure if it would be as charismatic were it set to a different beat. Efficiency can make all the difference in the world when it comes to making original rock and country music, and Drew Cooper accordingly makes use of it as much as he can in this single.
There isn’t a thing that I would change about the polish on this mix. As far as the production quality is concerned, “Best of Me” is as well-varnished as anything you’d hear on CMT this summer, but with one distinctive difference; Cooper isn’t depending on the bells and whistles behind the board to make his sound – and more importantly, his melodies – a larger than life entity. He doesn’t have to resort to such trite schemes in this track, mostly because the composition he’s recording is already as grand and full-bodied as we’d ever need it to be. Overindulgence might have its place inside of the surrealism movement, but for this country crooner, it’s rightly left on the sidelines altogether.
“Best of Me” wraps up with an enchanting tizzy of instrumentation that slowly fades into the darkness, and even though Cooper’s vocal isn’t leading the mix at the end of the song, its reverberating warmth is. Drew Cooper isn’t a well-known figure among the country music elite, but in terms of up-and-comers who have the right game plan for getting into the spotlight, he’s one of the more interesting artists I’ve had the pleasure of coming across this July. This single could serve as a formidable blueprint for future endeavors in the studio, and if it winds up being the cornerstone of a new full-length album for this player, I think his name recognition is going to spike earlier than some would expect. This is a good place for any newcomer to start in terms of getting to know his music, but I think his longtime listeners are going to be mighty pleased with “Best of Me” as well.
Chadwick Easton