Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio we’ve been listening to the debut single from Quebec City (Canada) band, Overlap. Their single, Flight 608, was released in October 2022.
Flight 608 is about a man travelling to go meet his ex-girlfriend, who left him because he hid important things, aspects of his life, from her. He’s been alone for a long time before meeting her, and he was enjoying the loneliness before he fell in love with her and was not used to sharing his feelings. In the song, you find him on the plane, but he’s still not sure if he wants to make the effort to apologise or if he would be better alone for the rest of his life.
The song starts with great promise – a soundscape of airport noises and a call for Flight 608. Moving effortlessly into some beautifully warm, picked electric guitar with bass. The guitar is positively dreamy and sets a wonderful scene.
When the vocals come in, they blew us away. Instantly transporting us to the early 90s grunge, the voice has aspects of Kurt Cobain and just a touch of Christopher Mark Robinson (Black Crowes). This is a quality vocalist who deserves to be heard.
The drums are stereo in the track and the occasional toms fills move nicely around your ears. We love the layered vocals and additional harmonies that arrive in the first chorus and come and go during the remaining verses and choruses.
There is an exciting guitar solo with a half-time feel at one point. Some well-placed piano sits in the background of the solo and fills in the gaps in the soundscape between riffs.
At 5 1/2 minutes long, this is unlikely to be picked up for commercial airplay. Whilst we’re seeing a great deal of 90s-inspired grunge and rock coming to the fore at the moment, music directors can be very picky about the lengths of songs – especially with new bands. We’d suggest seeking out local college and internet stations to help find new fans.
To our ears, the quality of the vocal performance is just a little too dominated by the instrumentation and to that end, we may be inclined to recommend a rework. The quality of musicianship of all members of the band is evident and we have no criticism of the performance.
Flight 608 is the tragic story of a lost love from a new and very promising Canadian rock band. We’d like to hear more, please!