Micah Erenberg writes songs that celebrate love’s triumphs and tragedies and the universal search for human-to-human connections.
Love is a stranger. It’s also: a battlefield; weird; a shiny car, a steel guitar. (Apparently, it’s also all you need.) According to singer-songwriter Micah Erenberg, it’s also inescapable. Like a hide-and-seek opponent you swear must be cheating, love is going to find you no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Like many before him, Erenberg finds himself at that perilous cusp when life’s experiences can either send you tumbling towards jaded pessimism and crotchety middle-age or fill you with youthful wide-eyed wonder and awe. On his second solo album, Love Is Gonna Find You, the 26-year-old Manitoban firmly embracing the latter mindset, writing songs that celebrate love’s triumphs and tragedies and the universal search for human-to-human connections.
To call Erenberg’s effervescent pop refreshing feels trite given the current climate of political mud-slinging, national instability, and impending global annihilation. Still, taken in a single dose, Love Is Gonna Find You’s ten songs is a tonic for our toxic times. Erenberg wears his heart on one sleeve and his optimism on the other right from the string-laden opener, “Do It For Love”: “All into all we remain something small / We behave like the rest of the world / There ain’t nothing that you can do / and not feel blue and not be untrue / it just ain’t that way / so live for the day.” By mixing material written in-studio and older tracks from his prolific notebook of songs (the oldest, “Bored”, is ten years old), Erenberg balances wistful young adult lamenting and dreamy-eyed positivity. His quivering tenor often sounds like it’s one croak away from turning into full-on tears, but that only makes him more endearing. Even when he’s on the verge of tumbling into treacle (as on the title track), it’s the conviction in his delivery and cleverness in his songwriting that wins the day.
Love is a formidable opponent, the ultimate hide-and-seeker. It’s a heat-seeking missile heading straight for that alcove under the stairs you think no one is going to check. It brings with it heartache and happiness in equal measure but never lets on what it has in store for you. At some point in life, we all are faced with the choice of whether to embrace the perils of love head-on or spend the rest of life trying to hide from its advances. With the mature and wide-eyed-pop musings of Love Is Gonna Find You In The End, Micah Erenberg clearly and confidently chooses the strange, weird battlefield of love. He takes it head-on, wielding only his shiny, driving melodies and his steely, steady guitar and piano playing. Apparently, that’s all you really need.
