Nine Black Alps released their debut album Everything Is back in 2005. As you fellow music listeners know, singles have to be released from albums to create a buzz and get people interested. In the band’s case, they had a few to pick from. When they released ‘Just Friends’ as one of those singles, ‘Never Coming Down’ was one of its B-sides – found on seven inch vinyl copies. Once they got all the singles out of their system, the band released something of a post-album release, the Glitter Gulch EP in 2006, which included a small number of B-sides plus a live number recorded for a French radio station. ‘Never Coming Down’ is on there too and was now available to a wider audience because back in the 2000s it’s fair to say that vinyl was not on people’s minds.

The track differs from the majority of those that made it onto Everything Is in that it’s a slow burner mainly led by acoustic guitars. It begins with a drum pattern that remains the same throughout the four minutes the song lasts for. A melodic bassline joins in before those acoustic guitars come in together to fill out the soundscape. The use of the acoustics provide a warm feeling to the ears. They certainly have a relaxing element to them. I particularly like it when that bass slide occurs during the choruses alongside those “ooh” backing vocals. It’s some sweet stuff. The music’s mellow overall, but it’s paired with lyrics about feeling empty, lonely and needing someone to talk to. It’s a conflicting dynamic that’s been done many a time before, but I’m definitely not complaining ‘cos it’s done so well here. You think it’s a comfortable listen, but then you hear Sam Forrest singing about the dread people can feel when they’ve let a friend down. Then it turns into a sad listen. One that makes you ponder. Then the song fades out with the bassline and drums from the start into silence, leaving nothing behind. It’s actually quite a heavy track thinking about it now.

The band had all of their B-sides available to play on their official website about a decade ago. Even the very rare ones that were only available on vinyl. That’s where I heard this track for the first time. I downloaded them from there using a program called Freecorder, which required listening to all of the tracks from front to back while the application simultaneously recorded and saved them onto my computer. It worked, I still have the programme today. Was well worth the time spent. Good thing I did because those songs aren’t up there anymore. You can find ’em on YouTube though.