“All Along” by The Proper Hustlers doesn’t strut into the room demanding attention. Rather, it drifts in like a memory you didn’t invite but suddenly can’t stop thinking about. And in a musical landscape where volume is often mistaken for meaning, The Proper Hustlers have somehow managed to craft something far more dangerous: a quiet song with actual emotional weight.
This isn’t a track interested in reinvention. There are no ironic breakdowns or tongue-in-cheek genre flips. “All Along” is just blues rock, in the most sincere, no-frills sense of the term. It’s music made by people who have clearly been through something, and who are smart enough not to scream about it.
The guitar tone is grimy, unflashy, and exactly as expressive as it needs to be. The drums are present, supportive, and not trying to reinvent rhythm itself. And the vocal performance walks that terrifying tightrope between “I’m holding it together” and “I really, really am not.” There’s no overacting. No “sad indie guy” theatrics. Just the sound of a person delivering a hard truth they’ve had to live with for a while.
Lyrically, it’s not a thesis statement by any means of the word. This isn’t the kind of track that gives you closure or some triumphant resolution. It’s the sonic equivalent of realizing you were wrong about something very important, very slowly. There’s heartbreak, but not the cinematic kind; more like the kind that makes you sit alone in your car for a while before going inside.
The best part? The ambiguity. “All Along” doesn’t tell you exactly what it’s about, because it knows you’ve already felt it. Maybe yesterday. Maybe ten years ago. That vagueness isn’t lazy. It’s deliberate. It opens the door for you to bring your own bruises into the mix.
In short, “All Along” by The Proper Hustlers is a song that assumes you’re smart and sad. Which, frankly, is a refreshing change of pace. It doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it does remind you that sincerity isn’t dead. It’s just been lying low, waiting for someone like The Proper Hustlers to give it a mic again.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
