Browsing Tag

pop ballad

Shir Tal-Ezer has released the most intense ballad of the year with ‘I Don’t Know How to Let Go’.

Shir Tal-Ezer tells the time-old tale of our human incapacity to let go with her phenomenal contemporary ballad ‘I Don’t Know How to Let Go’.

The singer-songwriter incorporated stabbing neo-classic keys, searing rock n roll guitar solos and stomach-churning crescendos alongside her conversational balladic vocals for maximum evocative impact. The progressive single ensures that your rhythmic pulses are intrinsically combined with the bitter-sweet melodies. The unpredictable time signatures and progressions leave you broadsided every time the soundscape takes another dramatic turn. Calling Shir Tal-Ezer’s single ingenious is far from hyperbolic.

I Don’t Know How to Let Go is now available to stream on Spotify. Or, you can check out the official music video here.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mad Gallica evokes awe and emotion in her cinematic ballad, ‘Souls on Fire’.

Mad Gallica

For her latest single, the classically trained singer-songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Mad Gallica wrote a cinematic pop ballad about supernatural romance; the orchestral soundscape is just as immersive as the deeply meta story weaved by the LA-based artist.

‘Souls on Fire’ is one of those tragically rare singles that evokes the perfect balance of awe and emotion as you listen to the fierce yet flawlessly pitched vocal crescendos. The LA/Nashville-based artist’s degree in vocal performance from the Musician’s Institute in LA was discernibly worth every cent.

She has toured the world as a keyboardist and backup vocalist, although I couldn’t easily name many voices that Mad Gallica couldn’t easily outshine. She has opened for the likes of Metallica, System of a Down, Ozzy and Guns and Roses.

Check out Mad Gallica via her website, YouTube and Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Singer-songwriter duo Scotia & Dagny have made their debut with their contemporary pop ballad, ‘All I Ever Wanted’.

NYC-hailing, London-based singer-songwriter duo Scotia & Dagny have made their debut with the release of their contemporary indie-pop ballad, All I Ever Wanted. In the rankings of the best slow dance singles ever released, we wouldn’t put this cinematically neo-classically-underscored single far away from Elton John’s ‘Your Song’.

The poised, reflective nature of the semi-orchestral downtempo soundscape complements the lyrics that explore the emptiness that ensues loss. The dreamy air to the single takes the sting out of the melancholy, but the wavering vocal notes hit bruisingly hard.

All I Ever Wanted is now available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Classically trained artist and producer Iona Maclennan has released her cinematic debut single, ‘I Walk Alone Tonight’.

‘I Walk Alone Tonight’ is the confessional debut single from the classically trained UK singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Iona Maclennan. With the orchestral strings pulling across the minimalist ballad, the instrumental score parallels the evocative magnetism of Iona Maclennan’s artful, spiritual in part, vocals.

After spending almost a lifetime trying to make sense of the world and the confusing dynamics within it, studying the sounds of Bastille, Finneas, and Jacob Collier, and taking lyrical influence from Billie Eilish, Lewis Capaldi and Taylor Swift, it comes as little surprise that the self-produced single carries enough emotion to leave your heart in your throat as you succumb to the power of the melodies and the lyrical poetry.

However she follows on from her debut, we’re stoked to hear it.

The lyric video to I Walk Alone Tonight is now available to stream via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

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

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

Alen Chicco takes us to ‘Our Lithuania’ with ‘Mūsų Lietuva’

Alen Chicco is already a household name (with a certain degree of notoriety) for being the first drag artist to walk onto the stage in his native Lithuania’s version of the X Factor TV show. Mūsų Lietuva – (‘Our Lithuania’) – is bold, theatrical, full of passion and dynamic, sounding at times more like a modern opera song or a piece from a film score as much as a pop single. Written and performed in his mother tongue (although the accompanying video does come with helpful English subtitles), Chicco’s voice is impressive, blending and mixing with the powerful musical composition tightly, his vocal performance well outstripping the usual ‘singer-songwriter’ and more akin to musical theatre or classical ballad.

The track builds slowly, gently adding strength and power, an ode to ‘home’ and to belonging, Chicco’s voice easily able to cope with the rise and fall of the track, potent and emotive. Sure, it’s easy to draw a ‘Eurovision entry’ comparison in terms of the feel and the language, but ‘Our Lithuania’ is more than that; there’s elements of performers like Callas or Caruso in the way Chicco’s vocal – which feels effortless at the same time as it’s full of strength and emotion – is delivered, maybe even Freddie Mercury’s surprise performance of ‘Tavaszi szél’ in Budapest, and – coupled with the narrative video translating the lyrics – ‘Mūsų Lietuva’ is an epic, honest, and authentic neo-operatic piece that makes a compelling and commanding change from meaningless bubblegum pop; for that, all power to it.

You can watch the (subtitled) lyric video on YouTube; check out Alen Chicco on Instagram.

Review by Alex Holmes

 

Jero Rest has released his intoxicatingly arcane art-pop ballad, ‘Heart’

If you always look for poetry within lyricism, you’ll find the Shakespeare of our generation listening to Jero Rest’s latest single, Heart, which officially released on January 15th.

With powerfully meta lyrics running in perfect canter with the ambient neo-classic keys, the singer, composer, instrumentalist and producer orchestrated a stunning ballad that could rival the works of Emilie Autumn, Sophe Lux and Evelyn Evelyn.

The absorbingly arcane release is the ultimate testament to Jero Rest’s distinctive style which organically manifests through taking influence from everyone from Hans Zimmer to Rhapsody of Fire to Black Sabbath to Phil Collins.

You can check out the official video for Heart for yourselves by heading over to YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emily Jean Flack – delicious, folky pop with ‘Another Year Gone By’

‘Another Year Gone By’ is the opening track and first single from Canadian singer songwriter Emily Jean Flack’s debut EP. And what a single it is, light, delicate, and airy, atmospheric and evocative in equal measure, the opening gentle piano chords, pipes, and keys perfectly accentuating Flack’s stunning voice. A mixture of Canadian and Celtic influences, Flack’s vocal is a thing of utter beauty, high yet never shrill, resonant and warm yet gossamer and glasslike at the same time. There’s a touch of Clannad’s Moya Brennan to the delivery, colourful, sweet, and with a dynamic range that seems effortless.

‘Another Year Gone By’ is stripped back, traditional instrumentation sitting hand-in-glove with a totally modern contemporary folk feel, those elements of Celtic pop mixing with the storytelling lyrics to perfectly showcase Flack’s raw, melodic versatility and panache.

You can hear ‘Another Year Gone By’, and the rest of the ‘Throwing Shapes’ EP, on Spotify; follow Emily Jean Flack here or on Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes

Izzy Frances’s ‘Stay With Me’ – Beautiful, Stripped-Bare, and Emotive.

It’s not often as a reviewer that one starts to run out of superlatives, but when it comes to UK-based singer-songwriter Izzy Frances that’s highly possible. Frances has already had some serious success with new single ‘Stay With Me’, reaching the top ten on iTunes on its day of release, and staying there ever since; already a semi-finalist in last year’s UK national song-writing contest, Izzy’s gained support from BBC Introducing for all her releases so far, and on this basis of this track it’s very easy to see why.

‘Stay With Me’ is a beautiful, gentle, vaguely folk-oriented piano-led ballad which is carried superbly by Frances’ delicate voice; a mix of heartfelt emotion, soft and gentle yet raw and powerful all at once. The sparse piano arrangement adds perfectly to the feel of the delivery; there’s touches of Beverly Craven, Phoebe Bridgers, and even Norah Jones to the vibe, the lyrics mature and exposed whilst the minor-chord accompaniment sits stunningly well underneath. ‘Stay With Me’ is subtle and tender, stripped bare, fragile and emotive, and exquisitely well done.

You can hear ‘Stay With Me’ on SoundCloud now. Follow Izzy Frances here.

Review by Alex Holmes

Singer-songwriter Abby Lokelani has made an ethereal debut with ‘Morning Glory’.

Boston-based Berklee scholar, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Abby Lokelani made her 2021 debut with the single ‘Morning Glory’; it speaks so personally you may just feel interrogated by the questioning lyrics.

With a semi-orchestral arrangement searing beneath Abby Lokelani’s vocals and finding synergy with the quiescent finger-picked guitar strings, there’s a sonically ethereal air to Morning Glory which amps up the evocative charge of the image-conjuring lyrics.

Any fans of Daughter, London Grammar and Deerhunter will want to take the time to delve into this promising exhibition of multifaceted talent which we hope to hear much more of in 2021 and beyond.

Morning Glory is available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast