It’s the crack of dawn I got my radio on
And I pull her off the old interstate
Cause the backroad’s calling
I’m in no rush at all
I’m just traveling across the US of A

As a band who have travelled across North America too many times to count, Elliott BROOD knows the kind of energy a weary traveller needs to make it across that next state line. Our favourite road dogs return with the ultimate road trip anthem, “Wind and Snow”, a roadhouse classic rocker interwoven with country quips and riffs.

Kicking off with near-cheer clapping, Elliott BROOD launches into a pace as fervent as Snow Birds fleeing winter and as rowdy and rousing as a Chuck Berry classic. Replete with all the characters you’d expect to run into when driving cross country (“trippy little hippies”; “the truckers and the bikers”), Elliott BROOD sails through states, and states of mind, as lickety-split as a pit stop.

I got a bag to go and now I’m back on the road
With my mind’s eye opened wide
A little something for the boredom of the plains of Oklahoma
Gotta get to Amarillo tonight

With its relentless pace, frenetic energy and good-natured humour, “Wind and Snow” is a freeway to fun, an American patchwork of personal roadmaps and visual signposts. Dotted with rhymes for all the cities that cross the map, some familiar (Albuquerque) and some less known (Champaign, IL), all the places they namecheck form a constellation that any traveller out there listening can follow.

Like something you might hear on a long-haul driver’s radio, “Wind and Snow” shakes with a rolling-stone zeal for free-wheelin' electric guitar and is fuelled by an AC/DC-esque need for high speeds. At its tail end, it unleashes a phenomenal piano solo, played by Casey Laforet, that would make Garth Hudson proud.

I’m making my way to California
To the ocean and the warm sunshine
Now I’m a little bitty fish in a pond of barracudas
And I think I’m gonna lose my mind

Unrelenting in its energy, going so fast we might lose our minds, “Wind and Snow” is a smile spreading through the windswept tears, whipping by and through open windows. If the road of life has got you feeling beat, “Wind and Snow” is an alarm clock, a friendly face at the truck stop and strong, hot coffee to keep you going.

THE HORIZON LINE PLAYLIST:
Listen to this week's Horizon Line playlist inspired by Elliott BROOD's "Wind and Snow".