Loverman's wanderlust dreams catch fire on "Blue Blood Baby" from the "Wings Of Desire" album

Blue Blood Baby by the indie rock outfit Loverman instantly has a sense of unbridled urgency starting with guitar lines that feel like sparklers going off. When the drum beat, bass and subdued keys drop in seconds later and Sasha Papadin's blue collar vocals, husky and serious command attention there is a heavy dense fog of wanderlust in the air. The sense of movement both physically and emotionally is felt in spades. The song is so cinematic that you feel the story hard here. The track is from the debut album "Wings Of Desire", the title paying homage to Wim Wender's 1987 film about an angel who give us his wings in order to experience life and love as a human being accepting mortality as the price. 

Loverman's center is Sasha Papadin (keys, vocals) and his long time collaborators Jake Studer (guitar) and Kieran Maloney (drums). They hail from Sonoma, California and the musical stories they tell is the hard stuff of life full of love, heartbreak. Papadin, a songwriter and singer for a number of bands including 1955 who alongside The Raveonettes and Blonde Redhead were part of the iconic Northern California rock scene. Life can, of course, knock you down and after the sudden death of his father in 2016 Papadin left the stage and retreated to the recording studio in the back of his furniture workshop and struggled to write. Steeping himself and finding some solace in albums by Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Damon Albarn he traded his guitar for piano exploring themes of mortality and love. 

Being a songwriter like many creative, personal matters can be a lonely endeavor. It can also, especially at the darkest of times, be an utterly healing, life saving embrace. The kind of embrace that can rip your heart out at the same time pulling you from the clutches of despair. "Wings Of Desire" may be described as music for fans of dreamy, uptempo indie rock in the vein of War on Drugs and features production from Grammy winner Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Timber Timbre).

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Robb Donker