If you follow the music of Jeremy Rice, I have a feeling that his new single “Underneath the Ground” is going to immediately feel more instrumentally shapely than you anticipated. Unlike some of the other material I’ve heard Rice play in the past, this is a song that lives to throw its sonic weight around, and to a slow-churned dancehall groove, it does just that with a subtle selection of pop pleasantries included for good measure. It’s another crossover in year riddled with them so far, but one that isn’t repellent to a discriminating critic who demands something extra-melodic to round out the winter season.
The chorus of this track is the moment in which Rice endears himself to the pop genre, and through the strands of muscly guitar melodicism, we can spy on a disciple of Beatles-style harmonies living his dream in this performance. The music video is a little darker than I would have made it, but depending on how you’re reading the multidimensional narrative in this piece, it could easily be justified. That’s the fun thing about a work like “Underneath the Ground;” it’s good enough to have numerous angles and meanings, most of which the average Joe would be able to connect with even without hearing the artist before.
I think that Jeremy Rice isn’t anywhere near maxing out his potential at the moment, but instead ironing out some of the details within his artistry to create as tight a sound as he can muster. “Underneath the Ground” is demonstrative of this, and for what it lacks in bombast it more than makes up for in originality and soft, warm pop elements that could be called the bread and butter of Rice’s style. He’s keeping me satisfied with his music, and I don’t think I’m the only one at all.
