Stream Now: Ryan Hobler, “All Along”

Ryan Hobler‘s “All Along” sounds like early morning sunlight through your bedroom window, with a haunting melody that moves with dreamlike grace — all of which is utterly appropriate, because it’s a song about the bittersweet ways in which dreams can use our memories to offer us temporary refuge from the troubles of our waking hours. Bounding behind a driving melody, pushed along with an acoustic guitar and topped off with tuneful vocals that soar on the verge of the falsetto stratosphere, it serves as a suitably haunting appetizer for Hobler’s upcoming full-length effort. As my colleague Rob Ross put it, Hobler’s sound is “Airy and light with that early ’70s Harry Nilsson/Gilbert O’Sullivan pop-ness about it.”