Fresh from their recent and well-loved appearance on Season 15 of The Voice, married duo Adam and Jerome Bell-Bastien – OneUp Duo – emerge with a beautifully heartfelt, passionate and melodically entrancing Christmas ballad.
Rebecca Cullen
Songwriting stands tall on this one, short lines walk you through a long-form yet rhythmic melody, by means of a surprisingly gentle leading voice – a quality that proves recognisable and unique to the Plastic Barricades sound.
Rock and roll is alive, thriving, and in perfectly safe hands. Solar Strides emerge this season with two singles set to reignite the indie-rock anthem eras – the ones that drew a hearty crowd and offered that raw and real escapism the mainstream just couldn’t provide.
Telling the story of divers watches under the sea, Island Of Tears fuses a reggae rhythm with a chorus of voices and flickers of distorted electric guitar.
Though the vast majority of the lyrics deal with regret and negative reflections on life, what really lingers with you is the simplicity of that line about hope – the lasting image of you (hopefully) opening your door. The song leaves you wondering, but it also leaves you with an air of optimism.
Andon and Opensoul collaborate to bring an entrancing bounce of a beat and some bright, energizing melodies on this latest single.
The opening moments immediately put the listener at ease – here comes that fine fusion of retro electronica and the sounds of the natural world; here comes the dreamland, the ethereal bliss.
Just before putting on a stunning live show at Cardiff’s Acapela Studios, the one and only David Ford kindly sat down for a chat about all things indie, songwriting, performance, promotion, and much more.
Effectively bridging the gap between pop-rock and lo-fi, almost shoe-gaze-like tones, the single rains down with organic purity, engaging rhythms, and crisp, clean nostalgia.
The opening and title-track from the new Twin Lakes album In The Valley is a softly stunning, acoustic offering – one that quickly engages, energizes, and entrances listeners with its organic folk purity and captivating use of poetic story-telling.
The whole thing is subtly powerful, entrancing for its sense of space and colour, and the heavy contrast between that and the tiredness and melancholy in the lyrics.
Celebrating all manner of aspects from gratitude to relationships to overcoming or learning from mistakes, this EP in full showcases a talented and versatile artist and songwriter, as well as offers a playlist that’s beautifully heartfelt, eclectic, and deeply human.