Jacob Jeffries’ latest single, “Steady,” is a warm hug you didn’t know you needed. Jeffries, with his plainspoken indie-folk earnestness and a gift for spinning stories through melody, delivers a song that’s as grounded as its name implies.
Following a lauded stint giving performances all around from Red Rocks to Madison Square Garden to Fuji Rock in Japan with his band Vulfpeck, Jeffries returns to his solo roots, and just in time. “Steady” strips away the adornments, trading on the strength of warm harmonies and intimate lyrics. It’s a song about the anchors in our lives, the friends who keep us grounded when everything else feels like it’s in motion.
Its simplicity is what makes it so great. An acoustic backdrop gives Jeffries’ voice space to shine, soft but firm, fragile but resolute. And the harmonies don’t just float preciously above the melody, they lock into the tune, contributing to a texture that is, like the comfort and brotherhood the song describes, serene and companionable. The arrangement has a subtle theatricality to it, not showy, but the song dresses a dramatic emotional scene around the listener.
What makes “Steady” click is not just the artistry, but the sense that Jeffries has been there that, in a way, he is writing not from on high, but from the same crooked ground we all stagger over. It’s that elusive alchemy of personal truth and universal relatability, and Jeffries captures it gracefully.
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