The Music of Gary Hodges
If you are not yet too familiar with the sounds of Gary Hodges, let us be among the first to introduce you as the artist has recently released a few new tracks that showcase his ability to create cinematic backbone, emotional push, and an atmosphere that you can get engulfed in.
"Storm Shadow" is one of the more recently released tracks and the song boasts a rock approach with memorable riffs and a certain kind of drive that lets everything flow forward with a certain kind of smoothness but without ever losing that edginess or energy the track gives off.
This single is something that sets a bit of a driving mood and that's the kind of thing these songs do. They set a certain tone and mood and let your mind go where it may. So, these kinds of songs can be perceived differently by each person who listens to them.
The track features not only outstanding guitar tone all around, but the guitar work is at times vast giving the song This expansive underbelly with more lead style guitars that are creating notes that have an edginess to them still, but also float through the song's ether and give it this different layer of intensity at times.
This track is a perfect example of the kind of song that sort of breathes. It has waves of intensities that come and go and the way it builds is quite brilliant simply because the arrangement is done in a way that you can take that ride along with it.
There's never a dull moment but there are calms before the storms and I like that.
No pun intended there of course.
This track was very well arranged and let's listen to get caught up in the soundscape quite quickly.
The combination of the harder or almost alternative rock drive gives it that higher energy and bits of intensity but the other elements to the song like the bopping bass line for example, really help that come through with a certain rhythm and it's a track you can get into on multiple levels because of that.
This is one of my favorites so far because it captures a certain aesthetic and most definitely delivers that cinematic appeal.
The track actually comes with an intense music video and helps gauge those ranges of intensity as well.
Another track, "Care For Me" comes across quite differently but also showcases how Gary can create songs with completely different moods and approaches.
Gary Hodges is the type of composer and songwriter that can blend and mend genres at free will, so you're able to flow with whatever the moods are as they happen.
It's all quite seamless and that's the most impressive aspect to me. You'll have a song with more of a funky backbone and horns, vocals, and all kinds of other stuff but you can also have a track that's got that alternative rock drive and expansive undertone as well so, you have all these different levels of songwriting that come together and you can easily and quickly tell that the artist is someone who's able to write specifically to or for a visual or a mood.
A song like "Storm Shadow" has the essence of what you would hear in an action flick.
The highs, the lows, the intensities, the drives, the edginess, and the flux of flow that it delivers all take you along on this musical journey of sorts and it's something that serves as an escape from me.
I am certainly going to be paying a lot of attention to whatever is coming next from Gary Hodges and I certainly enjoyed the different approaches that he's given me so far so I hope to hear some new ones in with these as well and in your future and I think I will.
At any rate, definitely have a listen to these two tracks and see what they do for you.
See what kind of visuals pop in your head while you're listening.
