Browsing Tag

ballad

Luanne Hunt speaks to the love-sick in her latest New Country single, The Butterfly Effect.

Posted on 1 February 2022

For anyone that bemoans “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”, Luanne Hunt’s latest new country single, The Butterfly Effect, will show you just how wrong you are. The timelessly classic and instantly beguiling love song, which was written by Greg Matthews and Bill O’Hanlon, allowed the country singer’s vocal timbre to flourish next to the quiescent pulls of the acoustic guitar strings and bright yet subtle piano keys. The instrumentals build momentum in synergy with the Grammy-nominated vocals and lyrics that get more ardent and urgent as this powerfully sentimental single unfolds.

The emotions we contend with when we are at the butterfly stage of affection aren’t the easiest feelings to understand. It is songs like The Butterfly Effect that captures those emotions in the rawest form and help us to navigate them. After all, there is a reason why the term love-sick exists.

The Butterfly Effect is now available to stream Via SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Adam Wedd reaches the pinnacle of pensive piano pop with ‘Home N Away’.

Posted on 1 October 2021

Pensive piano pop has never been quite as bitter-sweet as the latest stormy release, Home N Away, by up and coming artist Adam Wedd. The emotionally charged semi-orchestral soundscape is fraught with loss and mourning and still manages to hit a compassionate soft spot as you’re swept up in the fanfare of the theatrical elements and straight from the soul sentiment.

Despite a global pandemic, the London-based singer-songwriter’s career hasn’t failed to pick up traction. With a sell-out debut EP under his belt, accolades from BBC introducing and the freedom to tour Europe and the USA once more, he is definitely one to watch.

Home N Away was officially released on October 1st. You can check it out for yourselves by heading over to Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Abi Mia’s orchestral ballad, Shadow, resounds with empowerment

Posted on 22 September 2021
Abi Mia

Abi Mia’s latest piano pop ballad, Shadow, is easily one of the timeliest singles that we’ve heard this year; for the lyrics, she looked deep into the collective misery and burnout surrounding her, sonically, she constructed a compelling case for self-care that is impossible to ignore.

Our self-destructive need to work ourselves to exhaustion determination to be fine with everything our chaotic world throws at us is something that has been eating away at us since long before the lockdowns, but right now is the perfect time for a conversation. Abi Mia leads that dialogue with her soul-baring single that will quickly convince you to strip away your façade and allow the single to resonate with you on a deeper level.

The only question that the radio-ready orchestral ballad leaves you with is why isn’t she already a multi-platinum artist? It is only a matter of time before Abi Mia is scouted for her distinct vocals that only allow fleeting reminiscence while boasting the same robust propensities as Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Adele.

Shadow is due for release on September 17th. Check it out for yourselves on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nancy Dawn Olsen dares to dream in her ballad, I Don’t Want to Wake Up.

Posted on 20 September 2021
I Don't Want To Wake Up by Nancy Dawn Olson

If reality doesn’t quite hold up to the metaphysical bliss that greets you when your head hits the pillow, sink into Nancy Dawn Olsen’s latest single, I Don’t Want to Wake Up which captures the dreamlike state our minds enter when they entertain our ardent desires that fall out of focus come the morning light.

The ballad kicks off to an ethereal and vulnerable start with minor-key minimalist piano chords; as the orchestral swells raise the energy, Olsen matches it with her resoundingly pitch-perfect vocal timbre. I Don’t Want to Wake Up becomes a firestorm of a single that reminds you that love unparalleled, but there are few things as visceral as the absence of it. Lyrically, it may be the opposite of Aerosmith’s Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, but it carries exactly the same fire.

I Don’t Want to Wake Up is now available to stream and download via Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Unravel with a.patrick’s consoling modern masterpiece, fray

Posted on 1 September 2021

From the instant you hit play on the Minneapolis vocalist, pianist and producer, a.patrick’s, latest single, fray, your senses surrender to the ethereal quiescence that ensues through this modern masterpiece.

His artful neo-classic style is enough to bring tears to the surface as his accordant harmonies echo above his distinguished piano melodies that carry little, if any, assimilation. The way he leaves himself exposed through his lyrics and gentle vocal presence is enough to feel you feeling just as emotionally naked.

As someone who frequently finds themselves drawn to melancholia in music, I can earnestly say that you’d struggle to find another soundscape as captivating and consoling in equal measure as this beautifully scorned lullaby.

Fray is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Shift your perception on affection with TIBIBI’s ethereal neo-classic single, Remind Me.

Posted on 1 August 2021

‘Remind Me’ is the latest artfully ethereal release from alternative singer-songwriter, producer and engineer, TIBIBI; whose neo-classic works carry the same haunting weight as Portishead while registering as enticingly authentic.

The single melodically spins the story of a person falling in love but not falling deep enough to lose their head. The suitably meditative semi-orchestral synth-pop single allows the lyrics to resonate as a mantra, a promise to yourself that you won’t descend to the depths of love you can’t pull yourself up from.

Remind Me starts as a neo-classic piano loop before classical strings weave into the mix with reverb-swathed analogue synths. TIBIBI’s gently layered vocals meld succinctly into the single which is conceptually powerful enough to shift your perception of love.

Remind Me is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Christopher Siu sets a cinematic score with his latest single, Once Again, featuring Amber Jakes.

Posted on 1 August 2021

For his latest single, Once Again, Toronto singer-songwriter and composer Christopher Siu collaborated with Amber Jakes to create a theatrically cinematic ballad; the orchestral score is almost arcane in its ability to immerse you in fantasy.

The light and sweeping piano notes set an evocative tone for Amber Jakes’ soulfully imploring vocal timbre that starts succinctly and climbs to the higher notes in line with the instrumental crescendos tenderly crafted by Siu. Once Siu’s vocals make a resounding appearance, his influences of Disney and music theatre start to shine through in the mesmerising single. Wherever Siu takes his sound next, we are sure that it will be a resounding, panoramic success.

The official lyric video is now available to stream on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sofia Biancardi shares visceral grief in her latest pop ballad, ‘Need You Now’

Posted on 28 June 2021

After listening to Sofia Biancardi’s latest single, Need You Now’, it is safe to say that London has a new luminary artist in its midst that has made the competition for the Mercury Prize a little harder.

The, quite literally, arresting release is everything that an indie ballad should be. There’s a sublime balance between poise, grace and fiercely intense expression. The otherworldly ethereal release is enough to leave you feeling like you’ve had a religious experience.

Words alone could never encapsulate the raw beauty in Need You Now, which captures the visceral obsessive distress that catches us when we contemplate losing the ones we need the most. It’s so far beyond a ‘watching the rain with pensive malaise’ kind of ballad; it’s a contending with a storm of guttural pain kind of ballad.

Need You Now officially released on June 25th; you can check it out for yourselves by heading over to SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

NYC Singer-Songwriter Clanklin is set to release the most visceral ballad of the year with ‘Oath’

Posted on 19 May 2021
Clanklin

NYC’s singer-songwriter Clara Miller brought the same poise as seen in her performances with the New York City Ballet to her indie piano pop ballad, Oath.

Under her freshly adopted moniker Clankin, she is set to enamour pop, indie and folk fans alike. With the haunting reminiscences to the likes of Angel Olsen alongside her palpable mainstream potential, Clanklin offers a rarely found combination of accessibility and authenticity. She allows you to feel right at home within her magnetic sound while feeling the chills that only manifest through brand-new sensory experience. Oath delivers just that.

Oath is the title single for Clanklin’s forthcoming EP. With her tender vocals running through lyrics that document the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father paralleled with her historical introspection, you can’t help but become compassionately transfixed. If any 2021 release is worthy of a standing ovation, it’s Oath.

You can check out Clankin via her official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sophia James – beautiful, healing hope with ‘Sixty Years’

Posted on 20 April 2021

“Sixty years from today, the earth will have withered away”…Sophia James grew up in Long Beach, California, and that airy chilledness shows through in her music, earning her a place in the coveted ‘Top Ten’ on 2020’s American Idol. ‘Sixty Years’ is a beautiful, piano-based song, down-tempo but not slow, melancholic at times, but not sad, a mixture of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, hopeful, gentle, and charismatic. It’s a lovely record, Sophia’s beautiful vocals rolling and lifting, the lyrics stunning and superb.

It’s genuinely moving and emotive, Sophia’s voice carrying the listener away on a wave of beautiful nostalgia around love and regret, and the way some people are just destined to always be there, one way or another, no matter what – those relationships that you can leave untouched for five years and yet pick up like you only popped out yesterday. Sophia wants to ‘create music that will connect people, move people, and heal people’; in ‘Sixty Years’, she’s done just that. It’s a truly beautiful single.

Hear ‘Sixty Years’ on Spotify; check out Sophia James here or on Instagram.

Review by Alex Holmes