You're Not With Me - No Vacation

One of my favorite groups entrenched in the dream pop genre, and steadily growing in quiet popularity (even with their year-long hiatus), No Vacation, has just released their latest five-song album, Intermission, on November 17th, 2017, and is another impressive effort by the chill group. The second single from Intermission, "You're Not With Me," is a calmer No Vacation song with less influence of guitar riffs for what I believe is to emphasize the theme of loneliness and isolation, as the guitar has been softened and replaced by a wavering synthesizer.

My first experience with No Vacation was with their single in 2015, "Draem Girl," which had ultimately put them on the map as it has grossed to almost 1.5 million views on YouTube, through my most endeared channel, The Lazylazyme. "Draem Girl," is a guitar-driven track that takes the listener on a journey through romance and longing, with its genius transition from quick riffs to meticulous and widen-out strumming to better evoke the transition of infatuation and courting to the falling out and heartbreak. Since "Draem Girl," No Vacation has continued with it's focus on instrumentation and emotion rather than the lyrics, which is not to say their lyrics are irrelevant, as they use words to promote a desired feeling and to reiterate said feeling from the instruments, but it does come second-handed to the omnipresent sounds of the instruments and vocals.

Nevertheless, we can see the same centrality today with "You're Not With Me" as the have-hearted vocals, coalesce with the melancholy licks of the guitar and over-head hum of the synthesizer, which for some reason always creates a poignant feeling for the listener. The entirety of the song consists primarily of refrains "And I'm 365 days away/You're not with me anymore" and "I was too tired to argue with you/I was too tired, so I let it go," explicitly, and without question, expressing the feeling of longing and regret. However, we do see a verse of brilliance, which I would have loved to hear more of, "You know that street we just past/I think that's where I saw you last," but the focus on the instrumentation is palpable and effective enough that the brevity suffices.

"You're Not With Me" is a great second single off Intermission (the first being "Yam Yam"), and is a chill but emotional track that does well to complement an act of introspection, but is applicable when doing homework...it's all good stuff.

If you dig this track and want to hear more or learn more about No Vacation, check out these links:

https://novacationgrrl.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/novacationgrrl https://soundcloud.com/no-vacation https://twitter.com/novacationband