Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Spain’s, Andy Arno. Misery was released on December 1, 2022.
In Andy’s words, “Misery brings a critical light to the things we don’t want to see even though they are right in front of us. Misery also talks about fear.”
Starting on some simple picked guitar riffs, the song quickly moves into a full band sound with simple drum patterns and some really interesting bass lines. The bass plays well with the drum rhythms and weaves in and out making some very danceable patterns.
Misery is a catchy and quirky lo-fi pop song. Andy’s accent is evident in the vocals, and we like that in a song. This feels like a song which could be a contender for Spain’s next Eurovision entry.
Layered vocals in the choruses work very well and fill out the sound nicely. Extra vocals come in in the third verse in the form of whispering the repeated line, “misery.”
The highlight for us in this track was the Mark Knopfler-style guitar solo. Great tone and choice of notes. This then leads into a brief tenor sax solo with a raw style, similar to that of Lee Thompson from the UK band, Madness.
Vocals layer up and pan left and right towards the end of the track and the song ends with a cute little riff on the tenor sax.
Ideas from our ears
A careful surgical cut at 190Hz would reduce a slight peak from the snare drum sound. A cut in the mids centred at 700Hz would reduce some ‘honky’ and ‘nasal’ tones too. A light compressor/limiter and maybe around 3dB of make-up gain would add some extra thickness as well as raising the overall volume of the track to match similar releases. To our ears, we would have liked to have heard a little more development as the track progresses. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
Andy Arno’s single, Misery, is a bouncy, quirky and highly danceable track from a dedicated and ambitious artist.