For Noah Rinker, heartbreak may seem like it’s never-ending. Between the voices of love, freedom and the beauty of everyday moments, the country singer capitalizes on the past he no longer has on his latest EP, Burning Daylight. The six-track EP sees the singer explore the yearning, the heartbreak and the pain of loving someone you can’t have anymore. A past that shapes him becomes a ghost haunting him from Mexico to Highway 99, all while Rinker tries to figure out who he is. It’s messy, hard and complicated, and Rinker navigates the long, winding road between heartbreak and healing. Set against the backdrop of highways, trails and fading summer skies, Rinker’s music sounds like a warm hug around the summer campfire, as he’s stuck between the open road and the closed door.
The EP, a true marker of how love can impact you even after it’s gone, opens with a warmth that glides throughout the six-track project and continues Rinker’s breakthrough this past year on “Red Bandanna,” which sees Rinker look at a relationship built on a shared appreciation and plays on the joys of driving stick shift, watching the sky and listening to the radio on open roads. On the warm yet wistful track, Rinker sings, “If I got you, and you got me, from the mountains all the way to the shining sea / That seems a good place to be.”
Despite the pain, Rinker tries to find some peace of mind and leave it all behind on “99.” Waiting for the wind to cross his face, Rinker uses visceral imagery to capture a distance between himself and someone else. In this almost idealistic track, he sings, “Time’s burning on the asphalt on the way with the way home with the thought of you.” Rinker sings, “Riding with me home real fast home down the 99,” which grounds the song itself in a road — a distance and a time that carries a physical place and a lingering ache. As a result, Rinker, longing for home, while a memory that is nostalgic for a past he can’t grasp anymore haunts him, is left to deal with this push and pull in a song now anchored in something.
On “The Bend,” Rinker feels overwhelmed by everything and questions who he is, singing that he’s “sick of my body, sick of my name, sick of my telephone.” He finds that it’s just something he cannot escape from, whether he’s running to Mexico or traveling through oceans or highways. Rinker, who says he’s missing his family, misses who he is more. He sings, “Every road that I take gets me lost.” Despite the overwhelming desire to escape a lie actually chasing him, he still wants something better for himself ahead.
Rinker finds some quiet, significant moments that have undoubtedly changed who he is as a person on the John Mayer-esque “Ripple.” He sings about growing up, falling in love and the passage of time, throwing himself into love unapologetically, as first heartbreaks often hurt the most. Nevertheless, Rinker deals with the pain of time: “Time has a funny way of holding us down” and “Sometimes it’s too late.” Yet, Rinker still finds a “ripple” in the heart — a small thing that grows into something more. A song that strips Rinker to its lyrical bones with its acoustic-driven and story-based presence, he later abandons his inhibitations for one final swing at life on “No Friend of Mine,” where he’s never met a love like this. he explains that while he’s seen his fair share of mountains but none quite as pretty as this person. He sings, “Ever since we danced in this head lights, you’ve been no friend of mine.”
In the EP’s final moments, Rinker must deal with the fact that time and has passed and distance has grown on “Wherever I Go.” The confessional and raw track serves as the perfect closer to the six-track project built heavily around Rinker’s sad and honest lyricism. The song serves as a quiet heartbreak anthem for those afraid to let go, singing, “I still feel you here in my skin and my bones / Yeah, some parts of you follow wherever I go.” The song shines in the chorus for its build-up guitar and percussion against Rinker’s gliding vocals that capture the strain of facing a ghost of a relationship that still follows him everwhere. A haunting memory now a dream and a sharp pain, Rinker is nevertheless taunted, as the reminder of someone he loved is forever etched in his soul. Throughout the EP, Burning Daylight, Rinker is left with the ghosts of his past and the uncertainty of what’s to come, learning that some people never fully leave us, even if they’re gone.
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