Mike Montrey Band’s “I Can’t Wait Any Longer”

To say we’re living in some of the more stressful times in recent memory really doesn’t do an era like this one justice; truth be told, if you’re able to have a calm, relaxing existence in 2022, there’s something you need to be sharing with the rest of us. One of these rare individuals, from the looks of his new single “I Can’t Wait Any Longer,” is Mike Montrey, and his eponymous band doesn’t mind showing us the way with their latest performance, which is already being heralded as one of the smarter cuts of its kind to debut on record store shelves this summer.

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/mikemontreyband/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Mike Montrey Band is slated to drop a proper album this September, but ahead of its release they’re sharing a handful of singles to give us a taste of what’s in store, and I personally think that “I Can’t Wait Any Longer” teases a lot for its parent LP. There’s a lack of hesitance in this R&B-flavored pop/rock tune that begs for us to turn the volume up and get lost in the harmonies MMB is developing, and by the time this track is over, it’s easy to call yourself a fan of the creators.

The only detail that Montrey ever grows hostile against in this mix is the rhythm, and with a certain amount of justification. He’s going up against the groove in this song using his verses, and the contrast this is able to cultivate scores him a lot of points in tension as we approach the climax of the song.

Everyone in the band is seemingly gunning for the same patch of the spotlight, but this doesn’t result in the different elements of the music sounding muddled, clustered, or unnecessarily aggressive. Contrarily, I get the impression that we’re listening to a group of musicians who want to get after the same goal with as much passion as possible, and even if we do end up off to the races in “I Can’t Wait Any Longer,” I think we needed to be in order to get a grasp on how much talent these artists are really working with – particularly as it relates to what their leading man is trying to accomplish with this single.

I didn’t know anything about Mike Montrey or his band before this past July when the buzz surrounding their music started to get very real for the American underground, but based on what I’m hearing in this ultra-pure mix alone, this is going to be one of the more interesting groups to follow in their scene heading into the autumn. As a vocalist and frontman, Montrey is a very charismatic individual who doesn’t need to be fancy for us to really get his sophistication as a recording artist, but I would be seriously full of it if I wasn’t acknowledging the legitimate astuteness of his backing players in “I Can’t Wait Any Longer.” This is the right group for him to be leading and the right leader for them to follow.

Mindy McCall