NICK LARIVIERE AND THE BEST LAID PLANS – WHERE WE GO

Nick LaRiviere and the Best Laid Plans have just released their latest single, Where We Go; the lead single from their forthcoming new album and we’ve been taking several enjoyable listens to it here at the Send Me Your Ears studio.

In Nick’s words; “I wrote this song around the time that Spirit of the West frontman John Mann was struggling with Alzheimers,” says Nick La Riviere. “While I didn’t know him personally, I perform regularly with another Spirit member, Geoffrey Kelly, and heard about his struggles. The song is a personal take, stating that I want to achieve as much as I can with the time I have on this earth, and hopefully do something worth remembering, like he did, even if I can’t remember myself.”
Where We Go is a fun and bouncy, positive feeling track that has a touch of Ben Folds in the styling. Starting with a lovely repeated riff on the piano (for some reason which reminded one of our team of Cliff Richard’s “Wired For Sound”!), Where We Go develops well and adds a driving kick drum into the mix soon after.

Vocally, this song has some real quality moments. Nick’s vocals have some great character and some classy vibrato moments.

The song builds on the kick at around 1 minute in and you’re treated to the full kit being added into the mix.

At around 2 minutes in, a hammond and some superbly warm trombone notes are added in too (provided by Nick LaRiviere himself).

The rise and fall in this track is superb, and the changes and additions of instruments throughout make for an enjoyable listen. We particularly liked the half time section that builds back into the repeated piano riff from earlier.

With a stinger ending, this powerful and super catchy track has all the elements needed for a summer anthem. The band features Nick La Riviere on trombone and vocals, Miguel Valdes on trumpet, Barrie Sorensen on sax, Kelly Fawcett on guitar, Attila Fias on keys and vocals, Louis Rudner on bass, and Alex Campbell on drums.

From a production perspective, a boost around 50-60Hz would add some extra thump to the kick drum and give it more of an ‘entrance’ when it joins the piano and vocals after the intro. To our ears, the tuning of the snare drum is a little dominant at 200Hz so an accurate cut here would bring it in line with the rest of the low mids. The whole track has a slightly dark and distant sound, so a large and wide boost across the high mids centred around 7kHz with an additional shelf boost in the the top octave would make the track more bright and present. A light compressor with some make up gain (3dB?) would add some extra warmth and bring the track volume more in line with other commercial releases. These are suggestions to our ears for a track that is already a real stand out.

Where We Go has contemporary elements with shades of New Orleans jazz and a definite nod to Beach Boys era music. A thoroughly enjoyable and well performed track from this talented Canadian act.