226. Song No. 3,396: “The Fireside,” We Speak in Sounds
Mirrors, 2014

I’d feel like a terrible big sister if I didn’t shout-out to Little Brudduh’s musical project I’m most famliar with. And while the band and he have since gone in different directions, it’s still pretty cool when your brother makes music you sincerely enjoy, performs at venues you can easily get to and, most impressively, plays with some pretty cool festival-mates.

Personal biases aside, Mirrors is a lovely little offering packed with lush harmonies, catchy earworms and an improbable amount of warmth for its not-even-20-minute play time. With all the magnetic vulnerability of early Dashboard Confessional and five tracks showcasing some ethereal, impressive instrumentalization that’d put all of WSIS’s communal influences to shame, it’s hard to pick a favorite song from an EP I wish so hard had been the prelude to a full-length that could’ve put these wickedly talented Jersey boys on the map.

But “The Fireside” is a fitting first appearance from one of the few bands on my iPod I have a deeply personal connection with and the only one that inspires Proud Big Sister gloating. It’s where dreamy introspection rises up to meet anthemic musicality, a final track that marries gossamer melodies with intricate buildups and leveling breakdowns and sends this moving collection of songs out on a high, declarative note grounding this album in victorious reclamation and hand claps and inspired musicality and a hot-blooded last line delivering one powerful parting shot that does a mighty fine job of just not just succinctly summarizing the EP’s prevailing mood but hammering its overriding message home: “You’ll never know what you are / Until you know what you’ve lost.”