Briana Marela
All Around Us/ Jagjaguwar
This is a beauty of a record. Abstract, ambient and guided by a first-rate vocalist and songwriter who makes All Around Us a stunner. Deliciously paradoxical, the album manages to sound explosive and subtle all at once, its exploration of relationships in their myriad forms is universal, while lyrically it remains starkly personal. Pop tracks like “I Don’t Belong to You” and “Surrender” are irresistibly euphoric, and “Dani” stands as the album’s greatest achievement as much for its emotional depth as for the impressive sonic palette it employs. Marela enchants with her rich, breathy vocals (get a load of her melodious intro in the first minute of “Everything is New”), and holds you in her sway from start to finish. All Around Us loses a tick of steam at the end as the album starts to sound like one neverending song, but it’s a damn beautiful song, and so this hardly qualifies as a complaint.
The Delta Saints
Bones/Loud & Proud
The Delta Saints are back with one hell of a rock ‘n’ roll album. Bones is filled to the brim with bluesy stompers, soulful howls and scratchy whispers, on this dynamic album that takes on soul, Americana, gospel and R&B.
It’s hard not to detect The White Stripes’ influence in the fuzzy rocker “Sometimes I Worry,” and “Heavy Hammer” is a raucous, dancetastic tune. Toss in the funky, hip- shaking “Zydeco,” and the moody, off-kilter guitar licks on the absolutely filthy Americana rock track “Dirt,” and there’s no resisting the magnetic pull of this record. Singer Ben Ringel is a spellbinding force of nature who makes the good times roll.
Poema
Pretty Speeches EP/Self-released
Pretty Speeches, the latest EP from Nashville-based sister duo, Poema, is breezy pop music at its best. These tracks are a perfect accompaniment for a trip down the coast on a sunny day, and at the end of this 20- minute experience, you will likely be sad that it’s over. Dreamy guitars and funky percussion augment lead singer Elle Puckett’s lush, slightly hip-hop flavored delivery on the chorus of “Go Away,” and the easygoing number “Enough Messing Around” is ready for radio. “Get to Me” pulls off a tricky marriage of Hawaiian rhythms and lounge jazz, while “Forget You in L.A.” is ’70s-era AM pop radio through and through. “Madeline,” a tale about loving someone whose heart and mind belong to someone else, ends the EP on a gorgeous, somber note—and when that last note has played, don’t be surprised to find yourself starting the EP over again.