It is possible that Hundred Waters’ recent dalliance with shiny pop tunes like “Particle” and the higher profile that brought (see their performance with Chance and Skrillex on “Colbert”) was just a phase. The growing pains you could hear on their last EP Currency showed the band figuring out a new direction, and new song “Blanket Me” undoes their trajectory as a electropop group. Instead, it shows they’re back to the soft-focus, immersive, electronic balladry their self-titled debut and 2014’s The Moon Rang Like a Bell boasted.
“Blanket Me,” is if anything, a perfect case-study in what makes the Gainesville band so appealing. They are obsessives when it comes to sound design, and “Blanket Me” demonstrates how tight, and well-made each and every sound and instrument they use is.They make electronic noises—in the rumbling cyborg chorus or undulating waves of synths—feel exceptionally humanistic. While natural ones, like the pillowy piano that is the backbone of the track and the bodacious drum fills that explode halfway through, give off a warmth that mortal instruments normally don’t posses. Anchoring all of this is Nicole Miglis, whose steady singing melds all of these opposing parts into a very pretty whole. As much work as it seems Hundred Waters puts into making each sure each part of “Blanket Me” is just-right, nothing about the song feels heavy or overly complicated. Rather, the pleasures of this song are so generous and visceral that its title is a spot-on description of what the band does to the listener.
