For photographers — professional and non-professional alike — no term is more sought after than golden hour. The sixty minutes before nightfall, the brightest of the day, is the moment to capture with the shutter and freeze in time. The setting sun bathes the landscape in soft, melting illumination and gives a wonderful glow to all living things.
The light of this magic hour is also deeply connected to nostalgia and thoughts of things irretrievably lost. “Golden Hour,” the new single from singer-songwriter Bombardier Jones, feels like a long, loving look back. It's the sonic equivalent of sunshine at its softest: a beautiful, warm, welcoming track with clever, empathetic lyrics and a bittersweet tone. It's five minutes of great guitar-rock, filled with a solid bridge, a deft six-string solo and a chorus that, once heard, is unlikely to fade.
“Golden Hour,” the centerpiece of full-length album Dare to Hope, has established the Baltimore-based guitarist as the heir to classic rock grandeur and Americana-style introspection. Since its release, its appeal has slowly grown – shared like a secret among devoted listeners and true believers in the power of songwriting at its purest. Much of the set is raucous: Bombardier Jones can channel The Who whenever he wants and is a steady hand with a ringing, monophonic chorus. But this is the ballad at the heart of the setting, the statement of purpose and the song that lends weight to the entire work.
The music video for “Golden Hour” is equally thoughtful. Director Philip Stevenson has adapted Bombardier Jones' carefully considered word pictures to faded Super-8-style footage that deepens and enhances the sense of Saudade that permeates the song. Vacation footage, family clips, sequences featuring vintage cars and old clothing fashions — all are calibrated to evoke that pleasurable ache that accompanies fond memories of things long gone. What we keep and what we forget is one of the main themes of “Golden Hour” and Dare to Hope in general, and here's a video that practically dares us to adopt the thoughts of strangers as our own. The visual highlights the grace of Bombardier Jones' words, the ease of his delivery, the simplicity of his melody, the solidity of the song construction and the honeyed tone of this irresistible track.
