Sule - Love Me (Country Swing)

Sule - Love Me (Country Swing) 

 RUMEMUSIK: http://www.rumekmusik.tk/download/love-me-country-swing.oV8s2FTXSZ1.html

Sule’s new single “Love Me” is the next logical step in a career that’s seen this great Quebec based singer move from being a valued collaborator with some of pop music’s best performers, a high profile appearance on Canadian tv’s equivalent of The Voice, La Voix, and now another important peak in his solo career with the release of this latest single. 

The single recalls a clear strand of Americana influenced by classic country, particularly the once wildly popular swing style, while still manifesting aspects of jazz and blues throughout the entirety of the song. There’s palpable confidence coming off this tune and it never strains for its effects – instead, it’s tailored to a perfect length and there isn’t a single false musical or vocally note struck throughout the song. “Love Me” is a wonderful single for Sule to open 2018 and promises his year will be a big one in his burgeoning solo career.  

The song, on the whole, seems a little unassuming, but that’s part of its charm. Sule definitely occupies a big chunk of the song’s imaginative and emotional space, but his vocal performance is definitely delivered with an ear towards complementing the track rather than leading the way and bending the sonic elements to his singing will. It’s really pleasing to hear his voice bob and weave through the emotional terrain generated by the arrangement and he sounds sure of himself throughout rather than relying on over-cooked theatrical moments to earn the listener’s attention. His voice is obviously very powerful and certainly capable of showstopper moments, but he never falls into the trap of laying on the histrionics and obscuring the rich instrumental backing he benefits from. Few singles, ever, are as well rounded as “Love Me” while still touching on an universal theme and narrative that anyone can relate to. 

Anyone will relate to this musical arrangement despite the rarity of the style in modern pop, Americana, or country. It has an affability that you don’t often hear from any form and, thus, makes it instantly relatable on a variety of levels and, despite its Americana influenced pedigree, this is a solid pop song as well that happens to utilize an unusual style. Much of the musical value for this song is built around its melodic strengths and the acoustic guitar that’s a constant presence in the song from the first, but there are other elements as well that make it an even more appealing listen. While the players are obviously top shelf talents, they are working for the song from the first rather than trying to garner the listeners attention with misplaced skill and everything they do enhances and play off well against Sule’s vocal. Few songs you hear in 2018 will present such a complete experience like Sule’s “Love Me” and its revisiting of the country swing style is wholly credible and entertaining.  

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/6Bia1W2jlx0d7H2oXLzb8O

Dale Butcher

Universal Dice - birth, love, hate, death

Universal Dice - birth, love, hate, death

URL: http://www.universaldice.com/ 

The latest album from Gerry Dantone’s Universal Dice project is extravagantly titled birth, love, hate, death, but Dantone’s songwriting and conceptual ideas more than live up to the album title’s grandiose implications. Dantone, a man of many talents, is a songwriting talent clearly cut from a traditional cloth, but he nonetheless knows how to bring those foundational influences into perfect accord with a modern sound an audience of today will enthusiastically respond to. It’s accessible, but never achieves that accessibility at the expense of an intelligent presentation. This is music that doesn’t take short cuts and never cheats the listener will still ably depicting Dantone’s storyline for the rock opera. The story advances through songs structured as voiced by particular characters and, while things are never quite told in a A-Z sort of way, attentive listeners will be able to follow along without straining their attention. 

 

“Welcome to the World” is a note perfect vehicle for bringing audiences into Universal Dice’s imaginative world and it comes across with loose-limbed confidence and sharpened musical instincts. It’s hard to not enjoy how well Universal Dice weaves a lot of musical activity into an unified whole while it never seems unduly cluttered. This is particularly apparent on the second song “I Wish I Could Tell You This”, one of the album’s best ballad-like songs. There’s some real musical drama in the jangling line of musical attack Universal Dice takes with “Your Son” and it puts a bright early spotlight on some of Dantone’s best work writing “In character”.  One of the album’s best moments in a rock vein comes with the track “The Prophet” and it’s largely thanks to hammering drums that maintain an impressive pattern throughout. There’s a lot of vocal harmonies making birth, love, hate, death’s songwriting extra memorable but few, if any, songs present that so well as the track “My Hands Are Tied “ and, despite the obvious studio construction behind such parts, they come across like they’d be convincing in a live setting.

 

“Take Me Home”, befitting its status as the album’s lengthiest track, likewise has a constructed feel that, thankfully, never comes off ultimately sounding like a put on. Dantone doesn’t have a classically schooled voice, but the production almost always frames his singing quite well on birth, love, hate, death and this song is probably the best example of the nuance he’s capable of bringing into a piece. “Danielle” is about as classic as rock and roll songwriting gets while still sporting a distinctly modern flair that’ few of Universal Dice’s contemporaries could hope to pull off. “Better Man” brings out the guitars bigger and brasher than before on the album and the punishing drumming characterizing a couple of the earlier songs returns here with dizzying authority. “I’m No Good for You” is another track where the drumming makes a big difference, but the most significant musical relationship in this song is established between the percussion and acoustic guitar. The start-stop nature of the arrangement provides a perfect framework for the tune. birth, love, hate, death comes to a refreshingly hopeful, yet intelligent and clear-eyed, ending with the songs “One Day at a Time” and “Forever” that underline, without ever becoming heavy handed, the essentially personal nature of these songs for Gerry Dantone. It never comes off as a solo effort though. Universal Dice definitely come across as a band and their fourth album is their finest recording yet.  

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5UqnHMQA5AgmLcD4W7BGLM

Scott Wigley