Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from LA artist, Bad Ass Beauty. 4 Horsemen is released today, 24th March, 2023. We previously reviewed her debut single, Me, and were thoroughly impressed with the rock/soul crossover, so we were excited to hear what she’d been up to next!
Bad Ass Beauty is the stage name of LaQuinta Prince. Prince describes this song as chaotic – and it’s meant to be. In her own word, “Putting it bluntly, I disassociate to deal with this crazy fucking life! This is a song introducing these 4 different personalities to the world. Writing and recording this song was a completely cathartic experience as it was the 1st time I was actually able to admit it out loud and acknowledge this was how I choose to handle trauma and stop pretending I’m ok with everything totally under control. It’s been a deeply spiritual and transformative experience.”
4 Horsemen has a very different feel to her previous single, Me. It is, as she says, more chaotic, but it’s also more driven and rocky. It relies less on her spectacular vocals, and more on funky guitar rhythms to make it work.
The song grabs your attention from the start with a full band funky rock sound and some ear-catching repeated guitar riffs. When the vocals come in, you can’t help but draw comparisons to Anastacia. The voice is raw and edgy with tons of attitude. The melodies in the verses are kept simple, and give less opportunity for Prince to display her effortless soul-like voice that we fell in love with on her previous track. Don’t get us wrong – there’s plenty of opportunity to hear Prince’s quality vocals at many points in the track, but it is less the focal point than on Me.
There are lots of different sections within 4 Horsemen, including some interesting spoken-word sections leading into the choruses, as well as some gorgeous layered vocals.
The guitar solo is a perfect blues-rock style, and a lot of this song feels like it would fit on a playlist with the likes of JJ Wilde or Joanne Shaw Taylor.
Ideas from our ears
A couple of boosts in the low end around 50Hz and 125Hz might help thicken up the track, making it sound a little fuller. The bass is very low in the mix. A push on the fader might also help with overall thickness. A small cut at 200Hz would reduce a slight resonance in the snare too. A shelf boost set around 8kHz would increase the brightness and presence, and finally, a light compressor/limiter with around 5dB of make up gain would increase the warmth and volume. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
Bad Ass Beauty is making a name for herself as a quality rock/blues/soul vocalist who is producing consistently exciting and impressive music and following her own true path. Definitely a name to watch.
https://badassbeauty.org/bad-ass-epk
https://www.facebook.com/laquinta.prince
https://instagram.com/bad_ass_beauty1