Golden Alliance’s new single, “Cruise,” lands with the kind of revving immediacy that makes you instinctively check if you’ve left the car keys somewhere obvious. This Sussex-based studio artist isn’t just plotting a holiday; “Cruise” maps out a profound, almost spiritual, desire to get under the skin of Route 66 – to understand its faded glories, those sun-bleached fragments of chrome and neon, its still-flickering rebellious allure, every last chipped paint memory. It’s like wanting to know the secret handshake of a forgotten, slightly disreputable, club.
The track motors along on a classic rock framework, high-tempo and determined, the sonic equivalent of unwavering lane discipline heading west. Yet, there’s a bright, rock-pop sheen to the production that makes the journey feel less about dusty desolation and more about the thrill of the open map, perhaps with a brand-new pair of driving gloves. I found myself thinking, oddly, of the precise, satisfying click of a Zippo lighter, that little spark promising… something. A beginning.
What truly resonates is this yearning to make the legendary highway intensely personal, to not just observe its remnants but to be marked by them, to weave new memories into its historical fabric alongside a companion. The song’s energy isn’t so much swagger as it is a kind of bright-eyed, fervent commitment to the quest itself. There’s a genuine reach here, an attempt to connect across the miles and the decades.
It’s a fascinating listen from an artist clearly pouring heart into their craft, this fresh voice from Sussex singing of American asphalt sagas. “Cruise” leaves you pondering not just the ghosts of an icon, but the sheer power of a destination – real or imagined – to call to us. If a stretch of road can hold such epic tales, which chapter are we hoping to write ourselves into?
