It’s only mid-February and I’ve got my first nominee for new song of the year. Longstanding singer/songwriter Kelley Stoltz has come through with an A-Side that’s been in repeat play mode in my headphones for hours on end as I type this.

One of the things I like about the song, besides the fact that I just love its rhythm and feel, is that I don’t quite know how to classify it. Having reviewed thousands of music releases by this point, I’m an old hat at coming up with “this sounds like _____” comparisons when writing about a song or album. But I can’t place the Stoltz song, and in this era of too many bands whose influences are all too readily apparent, that’s refreshing to me. So I’ll just suffice to say that ‘Cross Your Mind’ is a brilliant single, engaging in its rambling, bouncing way. It sounds like a car driving anthem, with its rolling rhythm and its sing-along vocal parts. There’s nice splashy guitar work and excellent verse and chorus vocal sections, but mostly what makes it such a gem is just its endearingly elastic feel.

The B-Side of this single, ‘The Anarchist in Me’, is a song I personally find neither here nor there. But ‘Cross Your Mind’ will be sitting in my heavy rotation list for a long time to come, possibly forever.

Brian Greene

Kelley Stoltz – ‘Cross Your Mind’ b/w ‘The Anarchist in Me’ (Stroll On Records, 2014)