- the album as a whole didn't grab me like the band's first two, but this song is a doozie. lushly arranged strings and hushed, ethereal vocals make this one of the strongest album openers of 2010.
- again, another album that as a whole didn't live up to the band's otherwise impeccable discography (much to my disappointment), this song is one of bss's best. both epic and intimate, ramshackle and clean.
- feels like being drunk. and in love. in the summer. in the sun.
- 9 and a half minutes long and it's still too short.
- although simple plan would have you believe otherwise, this is where punk music and pop music are supposed to have met all along.
- bon iver percussionist/vocalist sean carey takes just about every trick he learned from justin vernon and puts his own restrained, hushed spin on it, making something altogether new and beautiful.
- sounds like when you're driving in the summer at dusk and the light catches you in the corner of the eye and you have to squint really hard just to see the road. but in a good way.
- if the ronettes were depressed and stoned.
- i'm not going to decry the state of american radio music right now, because a) i don't wanna be a negative nelly and b) "we r who r". but i will say that i don't understand why songs like this don't make it to the airwaves. someone please explain this to me. a straightforward and achingly romantic love song (about harry houdini and his wife bess) with a deceptively sugary hook. why are so many people deprived of this?
- this song is such the jam. period. makes me want to dance myself clean. just don't listen to it and try and sit still. you might explode.
- with one foot still firmly planted in the blues-rock that earned them their well-deserved following and the other stepping towards a more radio friendly sound, the boys from akron whistled their way into the public's hearts with this one. and it's not a bad one to do it with.
- stabbing synths that cut right through you, tempered by almost angelic vocals.
- a really great and dark tropical summer jam.
- i don't know what it is about this song. i mean, it's the vocal melody in the chorus. that's what it is about this song. but i don't know why it's so perfect. but it's perfect.
- this is the song that probably caught me most off guard this year. big drums and bigs vocals. feels like walking into a mesoamerican temple in the middle of a ritual. or something.
- a painfully underappreciated and misunderstood album, this is the one song that could have worked it's way into the mainstream, had the band made that amazing jackson 5-esque outro into a chorus or something. but i like it just the way it is.
- i was not at all surprised by just how great big echo was, but i was surprised by how many people hopped on the train with this album (including reese's). on this song the band just piles on the instruments and vocals, and while "less is more" is usually a good rule of thumb, this song definitely benefits from the moreness.
- i know "little lion boy" was the song that won over most of this band's fans on their half-excellent debut, but "winter winds" was the one that won me over. i think it's the horns.
- while high violet inevitably became one of my favorite albums of 2010, it didn't get there without garnering a few criticisms. the biggest one being that the album felt just a wee bit too dark. and i realize that the national are pretty much always a little macabre. but i just didn't feel as many light spots on high violet as i did on boxer. but this song is full of that perfect balance of light and dark that the national do so well.
- after a phenomenal debut, the orchard (the album) was sort of a flop for me. but "the orchard" (the song) embodied everything i love about this band. interweaving strings and a tip toeing bassline set the stage for wes' signature coo, and a brilliant ra ra riot song is inevitably born.
- one of those songs that just makes you ache. an r. kelly cover, no less.
- sounds like cumulus clouds.
- wolf parade's expo 86 came out this year, and there wasn't one song on it that i heard that i wanted to listen to a second time. it's not that it was full of bad songs. most of the songs were good songs. they just weren't good wolf parade songs. who knew ape wolf parade's sound heavily. almost offensively. but when they do it so well, it's hard not to love 'em anyway.
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