Alias Wayne “Love One Another”

From a professional standpoint, it would seem that everyone in pop music wants to be known for some highbrow concept right now, and in this sense, you could say that the new single from Alias Wayne, “Love One Another,” is no different.

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There’s nothing conventional about this incredibly magnetizing track; from the indulgent, elaborate arrangement of the instrumentation to the overwhelming sense of pop melodicism guiding the verses from Alias Wayne’s lips to the echo of the strings playing in the background, it’s not what I would expect out of this material from a standard artist – but that’s where this singer/songwriter is entirely different from his peers. He’s hardly playing to the standard in this performance contrarily, I would have to say that he’s going out of his way to make his one of the more romantically atmospheric tones in folk-pop currently making waves on either side of the dial. If you’re as big into the new revival of Americana that we’re starting to hear more and more about in 2023, you’re going to find “Love One Another” to be quite the delightful listen no matter what angle you’re approaching it from.  

One of the best and most obvious positive features of this single is Alias Wayne himself, being that he comes into the studio with zero intentions of showboating and sticks with a rather humble attitude for the duration of the song. Classic energy is allowed to live on through this performance not because of how our star is presenting the material, but because of how he isn’t; you’re likely to find almost none of the indie componentry that has become the status quo for a lot of artists trying to do anything in the same vein as this.

Alias Wayne’s lack of hesitance is another contributor to the brooding undertow of the music, and even though he’s an upstart on the outside looking in, you would never be able to tell as much just from listening to his confident execution in this performance. Folk doesn’t feel like the trending aesthetic that it has been in indie circles in 2023 in this single, but instead an influence through which we’re able to better understand the storytelling behind “Love One Another.”  

Although it might be true that we’re entering a new folk-rock renaissance akin to what was experienced around the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, it’s not going to be led by the major label artists too concerned with cosmetics to produce something heartfelt. The likes of Ranzel X Kendrick have control over what happens to this movement next, and in “Love One Another,” we get a pretty strong idea about what he wants to be known for. It’s an impeccable release from an impressively talented artist I want to get to know more of soon, and from everything that I can tell in the construction of this song, it’s just a preview of what Kendrick’s Alias Wayne is going to be turning in consistently from here on out.  

Timothy Ball