Oh heartbreak, is there anything else so exquisitely painful? It’s like a knife through the heart and being drenched in ice water all in one. There’s no polite, sane, formulaic way to go through it. Everyone has their own trek through hell, but there are occasional areas that commonly converge. You know this common pit by its name: Wallowing. It’s easy to fall in here, clothes a little dirty, a slice of cold, leftover pizza in hand, and one coffee too many sitting cold off to the side. That’s where Gabe Woodrow finds us.
Woodrow is your alt rock, acoustic emo emergency phone call based out of Maryland. His music is the heart of catharsis. It stings with familiarity, a glance of bittersweet memory. If you listen too closely your first love might be standing in front of your childhood home. His work is like a rope thrown down the pit. A rough one prone to biting into your hands on the way up.
“Hallways” is as much of a gut punch as you’d expect with this reputation. What Woodrow accomplishes with a lightly distorted guitar and cymbal forward beat is a surprisingly clean finish and maudlin feel. His vocals are raw, strained, and come across as (painfully) sincere. “Hallways” comes only months after “Live Laugh Toaster Bath”, and before that “No Rain No Flowers” with The Great Heights Band. When you take a listen it’s no leap to say that Woodrow has a particular understanding of the miserable.
“I don’t want to move on just to come right back”
The “Hallways” chorus feels accepting of the final on-again off-again break up it describes, but the opening verse is too biting for it. “I still see your face in my nightmares…and that old place, that reeks of your perfume and mistakes.” That acid from the early verse is easy to miss at first, but it transforms “Hallways” from a song of mourning to a song of bitter purpose. The lyrics are a knot in the stomach that the chorus lulls into a dull ache. I’d like to tell you that the end of the song brings about a return to normality, but it left an emptiness that brought me right back around to the beginning again. I fear “Hallways” will be an on-again off-again relationship of its own kind for me.
“Hallways” is a flame in the dark for the heartbroken. Gabe Woodrow is that moody friend who will commiserate your pain without providing unsolicited advice on a way through. It’s one part balm, one part handholding. Misery loves company and its nice to have someone warming their hands over the same sad embers.
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An avid book reader, overthinker, houseplant caretaker, and MMO player, Kay loves listening to angry music with as much bass boost as she can manage to balance her otherwise quiet lifestyle. If she doesn’t write about the stuff she likes it will inevitably be spewed forth in nonsense order to whomever will listen. She lives with her partner, an angry cat, and a lazy dog, both of which are named after StarCraft characters.