AFTER RENO
Let the River Run
There’s something about silence—the right kind of silence—that’s more deafening than any stadium-filling hook or stadium-sized chorus. After Reno’s new single, “Let the River Run,” out May 2, 2025, doesn’t scream for your attention. It doesn’t bang on your eardrums or try to impress you with glossy production tricks. It whispers. It drifts. And then it haunts.
From the first softly struck chord on an acoustic guitar, “Let the River Run” sinks into your skin like dusk. The song is deliberately spacious, almost skeletal in its production, as if singer Phil Tobin and guitarist Chris Gould had to tiptoe into a haunted chapel to record it. There’s nothing ornamental here—just bare honesty. And it’s captivating.
Tobin’s vocals arrive with a ghostly elegance, bathed in subtle reverb, each phrase suspended like breath in cold air. The comparison to Chris Cornell isn’t just lazy name-dropping—Tobin doesn’t mimic the late Soundgarden frontman’s grit, but rather channels the same emotional edge, a kind of visceral vulnerability that feels timeless and genreless. If Euphoria Morning had a sibling raised on dusty roads and back porch laments, this might be it.
About halfway through, strings enter like distant memories—slow, mournful cello swells, aching violin lines—all layered with cinematic patience. The tension never resolves in the way you’d expect. There’s no climactic crash. Instead, it feels like the tide slowly rising until you’re suddenly, beautifully underwater.
After Reno, who first made waves with last year’s “Through the Heat of the Morning” (which we praised for its raw earnestness and slow-burn intimacy), are clearly not chasing pop formulas or streaming algorithms. They’re crafting experiences—songs that unfold rather than explode.
What’s perhaps most remarkable about “Let the River Run” is its restraint. Gould’s guitar work is more felt than heard—subtle brushstrokes instead of flourishes. It’s the kind of sparse arrangement that leaves an artist exposed. But that’s precisely what makes it gripping: there’s nothing to hide behind, and nothing more needed.
With each release, After Reno deepen their commitment to the unvarnished. They’re not just another act in the alt-Americana resurgence; they’re carving out a quieter, more emotionally articulate lane of their own. If this track is any indication of what’s downstream, After Reno may be one of the most vital new acts on the indie music landscape.
Let the river run, indeed.
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