Back in the last decade, Nashville’s Paper Route produced the impressive Are We All Forgotten EP (QRO review) and then the even more impressive debut LP, Absence (QRO review), with expanse and emotion. And then… they seemingly disappeared. But Paper Route are finally back, with The Peace of Wild Things, and while it couldn’t be as good as Absence, and skirts dangerously close to today’s teen-popular emotronica, it’s still a strong record.
Peace starts with the pressing and growing emotion of “Love Letters”, but it’s actually a more intimate album than Absence. That does take away somewhat from the band’s excellent size of sound, leaving tracks like single “You and I”, male-female duet “Tamed”, and “Rabbit Holes” a little overwrought and over-emotional. But then there’s songs such as first single “Better Life”, which evokes in ways today’s emotronica bands only wish they could.
Absence might never be matched again, but it’s just great that Paper Route are no longer absent.
