Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Belfast’s, AM Shanley. Glitternailed was released on January 23, 2023.
Glitternailed is featured on the soundtrack of the Disney original series Extraordinary, streaming on Disney+ from January 25th and is a gentle Americana/singer-songwriter track that we found extremely relaxing and a delight to listen to.
Glitternailed starts gently with strummed guitar and some gorgeous incidental guitars. When the vocals come in, the voice is fragile and intimate. It is an endearing voice to listen to and we love the use of panning of two vocals to sound together as one.
The song develops with some gentle drums and we thoroughly enjoyed the use of bass guitar as an occasional lead instrument, following a melody and harmony to the lead vocals. This is some well-crafted bass playing!
Our favourite moment of the whole song is towards the end of the verse, the chord changes from major to minor but a lap steel guitar fades in early making the song sound discordant until the change resolves it. We absolutely loved the creativity here.
There are moments the song reminded us of Radiohead and the layered and harmony vocals help to build the song as it progresses. The use of an almost complete stop before the instrumental section is a nice touch, making the listener sit up and pay extra attention.
To the end, the song drops back to simple acoustic guitar strums and intimate vocals, bringing it full circle.
Ideas from our ears
A careful cut at 196Hz will control the resonance in the acoustic guitar on the G note. Also, a small but wide boost across the top 3 octaves with an additional high shelf boost set at 12kHz will add extra brightness and presence throughout as well as enhance the ‘shimmer’ in the cymbals. Finally, a light compressor/limiter and around 3-4dB of make-up gain would add extra warmth as well as raising the overall volume to match similar tracks. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
Glitternailed is a relaxing and gentle singer-songwriter track with a grace and simplicity to melt away the cares of the day. Highly recommended.