Listening to the new DownTown Mystic EP, “Mystic Highway”, is a bit like finding an old, perfectly worn-in roadmap in the glovebox of a brand new car. It has the feel of something essential, something foundational, yet it’s being used to navigate a landscape of blindingly modern anxieties. Robert Allen, the architect behind this project, isn’t just playing classic rock; he’s conducting a seance with it, calling its spirit forward to ask it what the hell it makes of all this.
The journey begins in a familiar place with “History.” The guitars, courtesy of a roster including Lance Doss, Bruce Engler, and Justin “JJ” Jordan, have that golden, sun-faded quality. The track practically smells of hot vinyl and Coca-Cola in glass bottles. It’s a celebration of a moment when the future was an open road and a new beat was the fuel. Allen sings of a generation “stepped into the future and made a little history,” and for a few minutes, you’re right there. The rhythm section of Steve Holley and Paul Page provides the sturdy, reliable engine for this trip back in time. It’s a comforting, almost dangerously romantic starting point.
But then, the transmission grinds. “Modern Ways” throws the car into a ditch on the digital superhighway. The optimism curdles into a sharp, nagging paranoia. The feeling here is less rock anthem and more the low-grade hum of a refrigerator you can’t unplug. Lines like “there’s man in your computer” hit with the blunt force of a truth we’ve all decided to ignore. This isn’t a simple lament; it’s a snapshot of a particular kind of 21st-century paralysis, a world where you’re “stuck in on the edge with no place left to go.” It’s the sound of knowing the game is rigged and still being forced to play.
What follows is the soul-searching part of the trip. “Read The Signs” feels like pulling over at a desolate rest stop at dusk, the engine ticking as it cools. The keyboard work of Jeff Levine hangs in the air like fog. There’s a “shadow that’s been following,” an uneasy feeling that requires not an answer, but an awareness. It’s a call to intuition in a world of overwhelming data. This internal gaze deepens in “Lost And Found,” a stunning depiction of emotional vertigo. The lyrics “the lows are high / and the highs are low” capture that disorienting state of inner turmoil better than a thousand pages of psychology. Yet, it’s here, at rock bottom, that the EP offers its first flare of hope: the idea that love is a homing beacon.
That flare erupts into a bonfire with “Some Day.” This is the album’s raw, beating heart. It is a vow, a tender and fierce promise made against the encroaching chaos. When Allen sings “I will find you” and “I will calm you,” it lands with the weight of absolute sincerity. It proposes human connection not as a simple comfort, but as an act of powerful, world-altering defiance. The idea that “we’ll be one someday” is the ultimate destination this highway is striving for.
And then, just when you think you’ve arrived, the final track, “Somebodys Always Doin Something To Somebody,” unfolds like a worn, slightly cynical footnote at the bottom of the map. It zooms out from personal promise to historical pattern, suggesting the human drama of conflict and connection has been on a loop since the Garden of Eden. It’s a philosophical shrug, a bit of weary wisdom that contextualizes everything that came before. It implies that while our technology and anxieties may change, the fundamental programming of our species remains stubbornly, frustratingly, the same.
“Mystic Highway” is a journey through a temporal landscape of American music and mood. It’s meticulously crafted by a team of artisans who understand that a guitar lick can be as evocative as a memory. The collection leaves you tapping your fingers on the steering wheel, wondering if the road ahead truly leads to that promised destination of “Some Day,” or if it just loops back to the beginning, over and over again.
