myqo – “Before Me” Feat. Kevin Wright

myqo – “Before Me” Feat. Kevin Wright – Single Review

Yeah…I mean…I’m cool with it.

I look at it this way…sometimes we write about something so accurately, that all we can do from the listening side of the speakers is understand and appreciate where someone is coming from, you know what I’m saying?  Like, it would be extremely weird to be jumping up and down and be all kinds of crazy excited about “Before Me” when it’s really a song about losing someone important to you.  Well written by myqo of course, but yeah…it’d almost be disrespectful of the work he and his musical crew have put in to be over the moon about this melancholy song mired in sadness, wouldn’t it?  So like I said at the start…I’m cool with it.  I don’t know that “Before Me” gives me what I got out of the single “Scream” that I had previously reviewed by myqo last year, but I’d be the first to tell you that it’s really well done.

From what I understand you’ve got guest-star Kevin Wright singing this song for ya…and if you’re familiar with your Singaporean bands, you might know him from Girls Like Mystery.  Joining Kevin is Joel Gan and Benjamin Hwang to handle all the instrumentation, and the latter also handles the production as well.  Presumably that leaves the writing to myqo, and while his lyricism is sparing on this particular tune, he’s written a thought-provoking & evocative song that certainly gets the mood & message across.  Not really all that much to complain about at all – the quality from conception to execution has got the same high standards we’re familiar with from myqo, even if it’s being conveyed in a vastly different kind of sound and context this time around.  Kevin’s voice and myqo’s songwriting end up sounding like what you’d assume a cross between a Matthew Sweet song and Brian Molko of Placebo would be like to listen to.  No complaints from me there.  Word on the street is that myqo was inspired by the band Slowdive, and it was their similar style of internalized melancholy that led to “Before Me” being created.  I’m cool with that too, and I suppose I can hear the influence enough to the point it makes sense to acknowledge it.  I don’t know that I really feel like “Before Me” is too much of any one comparison we might make – it’s just a well written song that delivers on the emotional content as it was intended to – I think that’s where you have to praise a track like this the most…it’s a very focused track, and everyone involved clearly understood the mission.  Truthfully, that first lyrical line should give you a haunting chill – “I never knew – you’ll go before me.”  My wife and I have this discussion all the time where we try to figure out who would be best going first, and who would be more devastated by continuing to live on.  I don’t know that we ever get a real concrete answer to that…don’t know if I really want to know the actual answer either…all I know is I can’t even tie my shoes without her, so the thought of trying to get through life without my wife is practically unfathomable to me.  I’m sure you feel the same about the people you love most too, right?  It’s never easy to say goodbye, but music can often help us heal, and I suspect that’s largely what myqo is finding in the catharsis of making a song like “Before Me.”  It’s fairly one-note in terms of the emotions that it puts on display to a degree, but a narrowly tailored idea doesn’t ever have to be a bad thing.  Plus, you get that spot just after the 3:20 mark where Kevin adds a grittier sound that echoes the torturous feeling of being stuck in limbo, where you don’t really know how to fully process everything you’re experiencing in your thoughts and feelings, and the frustration of trying to come to grips with it all results in discovering yet another one of the steps in continuous emotional turmoil.  Let’s be real here…even when you hit your lowest of lows, you can still sink even further if you’re not too careful.  I’m thankful for art & music giving people a lifeline when they need it the most.

So yeah…like I said, I’m happy with what I hear in “Before Me,” and I don’t hear any reasons as to why myqo & his musical compadres shouldn’t be too.  It’s sad as sad can be, yes, but hey, they achieved the objective.  It’s listenable, it’s got strong hooks, it seems memorable enough, even if a song written in this style isn’t going to be the cut you’re going to excitedly run to your system to repeat for another spin or two.  Songs like “Before Me” are written so that they’re there for us when we really need them, full stop.  That means you’re probably not looking at a song that’s meant for everyday consumption – heck, you’re really not even looking at a song that follows the traditional definitions of what we consider singles to even BE – but that’s okay.  Maybe you don’t listen to “Before Me” each and every day.  Maybe you have a day so personally devastating that you listen to “Before Me” on repeat for seven hours in a row.  Things even out in the end; there’s a balance in all that we experience and all that we do.  I think that myqo’s got quite a contemplative and compelling song to add to his growing catalog here, and while we might not all be breaking down the door to go from happy to sad, I know firsthand that songs like “Before Me” serve a purpose they often don’t even realize…they help people heal & move on from some of the toughest things they go through, like an invisible guide that helps keep us on the right path.

Find out more about myqo at his page at Instagram here:  https://www.instagram.com/myqoband

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