After a season of upbeat summer bops, dance anthems, and rock tours, Jack Pine and the Fire’s entrancing new release, “You’ll Find Me Waiting,” is a hint of cold, crisp winter on the horizon.
Born and bred in Ottawa, but with a heart rooted firmly in the Canadian wilderness, Jack Pine and The Fire frontman and singer-songwriter-producer, Gareth Auden-Hole effortlessly captures the haunting call of the road and the warmth of home. The folk-rock group — compared to many of the Toms (Petty, Yorke, and Waits), as well as modern folk-rock bands such as Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers — offers something distinctly different and utterly intoxicating in their approach to old-timey string band music.
Maybe it’s the wilderness in this wanderer’s blood, or maybe it’s the almost frantic energy he and his band capture both in the studio and on the stage.
Rooted firmly in the Americana tradition, Jack Pine and The Fire’s romantic lyricism and melodic vocal delivery wind together above his own unique style of mandolin playing and a six-piece acoustic backing band, painting a landscape so vivid, listeners can almost picture themselves returning home to a cabin tucked away into the forest beneath a heavy blanket of snow.
“Left To Our Own Devices is about relationships,” Jack says. “To ourselves, to each other, and to the earth. It’s an appreciation of a simpler approach to life, while celebrating a natural world that popular society so often neglects.”
“You’ll Find Me Waiting” speaks straight to the heart, moving with a slow and steady groove that draws listeners into a world far from our own, out beneath the starry Canadian skies, lost somewhere in the forest with the one we love most, singing the words that only they can hear:
Take with you my heart to keep your rhythm
Come back with callused hands to stoke my head
‘Cause when all your work is done, you’ll find me waiting
In this dark and empty home with the curtains drawn.
