GISKE’s “August Came” Feels Like A Warm, Fleeting Summer

Repeat after me: a good song doesn’t have to be anything specific. Sometimes, it just needs to get one exact feeling right when you need it most. GISKE does exactly that with their latest single, August Came.

GISKE features members of acclaimed Norwegian guitar-pop band The Margarets, with a songwriting partnership that traces back to 1991 on the island of Giske, Norway. With August Came, they channel a sound that feels like The Byrds, The Smiths and Teenage Fanclub meeting up for an afternoon brunch and made a song purely for fun.

There’s nothing but light and all good things spilling from every corner of the track, as if it’s telling you to hold onto the warmth of a fading summer. The jangling, luminous feeling mainly comes from the 12-string guitars with harmonies wrapping you in radiant haze.

You won’t get something grand or complex, they won’t even be specific. But somewhere between their words, there’s a different kind of comfort, a sense of belonging once they drop the line “I know that you will find it elsewhere.” It’s as if the point is to not resolve anything but to just let things be.

At its core is a warm, sunlit feeling that feels uplifting and nostalgic at the same time. GISKE has a way of sitting in emotional in-betweens, where being wistful doesn’t mean heavy, and hope doesn’t feel too far to reach.