“WELCOME TO THE FAMILY” IS QUINTESSENTIAL WATSKY

August is always a tricky month for me.

The days get just a touch shorter. Back to school supplies surge like a wave and break on the shores of store shelves. Billboards for my hometown’s fireworks, which usher in September with a literal bang, begin popping up. My birthday rolls around, just as it does every year so long as the Earth keeps spinning.

August is a tricky month, because, regardless of the previous year, these annual landmarks only ever remind me that: I’m not where I want to be in my life.

And I know it isn’t fair to set my timeline against the clocks others keep; it isn’t fair to ask these celebrations to suddenly become more than they are meant to be, and convert birthday candles into existential crises. I know that it isn’t fair to place so much pressure on a month — on myself — but, it happens.

This sticky self-doubt isn’t the only thing that hitches a ride on the humidity, however. Because, whether through cosmic intervention, or just general luck — I’m not going to try and unravel the mysteries of the universe — a new Watsky track tends to be there when I need it most.

In 2016, I found relief in “Talking to Myself” from the LP, “x Infinity.” This year, the welcome relief from my summertime malaise is dressed in Watsky’s “Welcome to the Family.”

After over a decade of crafting music, the poet-author-and-rapper’s latest single is a natural progression of the sound he has been cultivating since “Cardboard Castles.” A marriage between a piano arpeggio — tinkling and bright — honest lyricism and a casual current of fuzzy hip-hop beats, “Welcome to the Family” is a meditative deep breath, not a desperate inhale.

Taking its time in unfolding all that it’s packed within nearly four minutes, “Welcome to the Family” is a testament to perfect pacing.

Weaving through verses — at times, gently perched between singing and rapping; while others are slick with his signature, fast-paced delivery — Watsky never overplays his hand. And it’s that push and pull — that knowing when to race through syllable-laden lines, and knowing when to let a verse stretch its legs — that bolsters and amplifies the San Francisco-native’s lyrics.

“Those fires in your attic that rage without permission / Some days invade your living room or break out in the kitchen / They breeze right through the building / They just show up as they please / And then retreat like grown up children / Well how’d you like to split this L and / Tell me what you’ve witnessed / If the price of life is hell / Well no one ever had to sell me on how nice a fire smells.”

There is catharsis here. There is community.

With a warm-and-fuzzy-feeling current of percussion and piano, “Welcome to the Family” is a sonic antithesis to songs heavy in machismo or overt despair. Brimming with everything that is quintessential Watsky — smart musicality paired with a deep understanding of how well words work, and which ones work well together — the song, as the title suggests, is an invitation:

“I’ll whisper every secret to you when this mic is gone / And I know you’ll listen / And I know it’s different / But it gives me peace our missing pieces could be siblings / The rough nights, ain’t leaving, so why the hell should we?”

So, if this month — or day or season or year — has been tricky for you, too, you’re not alone. Welcome to the family.