Forrest Hill’s “Flow Like a River” washes in, not as a gentle meander, but more like that quiet, insistent trickling that eventually, if you listen closely, carves new landscapes in the mind. This single, the apparent linchpin for his upcoming album “Beyond the Veil,” feels like a hushed conversation you didn’t realize you were desperately eavesdropping on, perhaps with your own frayed inner self after too many encounters with the relentless Now.
Hill’s own surprising journey – from helming Boston’s funk-rock provocateurs Judy’s Tiny Head (JTH), through the intellectual architecture of an MIT PhD, to this meditative Oakland stillness – isn’t just backstory; it’s the unseen root system feeding this introspective bloom. You can almost feel logical proofs dissolving into melodic flow. The song grapples, tenderly yet firmly, with that disorienting crunch when the world-view you’ve meticulously curated suddenly resembles a dropped teacup – all sharp edges and lost pattern.
“Flow Like a River” speaks of a “poison,” that insidious, persistent hum of negativity, fear, and despair trying to take up residence in the heart. It’s a potent acknowledgement, resonating with Buddhist thought on those troublesome “Three Poisons” without ever feeling like a sermon. The disillusionment is keen, like discovering your favorite childhood map was drawn by a well-meaning but utterly lost cartographer.
The music, an indie rock and folk-rock current, carries this emotional heft with an almost defiant grace. Hints of Andrew Bird’s intricate sonic clockwork tick alongside a ghostly shimmer of U2’s atmospheric expanse; there’s Tom Petty’s earnest stride, and a melodic unexpectedness suggesting The Shins consulted on the day’s particular shade of sky. And the vocals, bathed in deep reverb, don’t sound adrift; they echo up as if from a moss-lined well, bringing forgotten, luminous things. A psychedelic touch, yes, but less tie-dye, more the phosphenes dancing behind your eyelids in the dark.
The remedy offered isn’t a grand plan, but surrender. Acceptance. Letting go so something more positive, perhaps love, can find entry. It’s quiet bravery, this choosing to un-cling.
When the solid ground beneath turns to water, is the only choice to drown, or finally learn the current’s rhythm?
