Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the debut single from Israel’s, Keren Ram. Keep Walking is a positively inspirational song of hope.
Keep Walking is a song which grabs your attention immediately. Coming straight in with a full folk-pop band sound, the song really pulls you in.
Additional harmonies are layered in by the time you reach the first chorus, together with some lovely subtle incidental instrumentation between vocal lines.
You can hear Keren’s accent in the vocals, which we always find endearing, and there are moments when the female harmonies together give this a slightly ABBA-esque feel.
We love the middle 8 that builds well, leading back to the super-catchy chorus with a positive “what are you waiting for?” call to action. The chorus repeated to the end has some lovely guitar incidental work in it that was a nice touch.
Keep Walking is well under 3 minutes long. However, it says everything it needed to say within those three minutes and sits comfortably as a complete work. Its brevity may be a bonus with regards to seeking out airplay as music directors might be more inclined to play a new artist if their song is under 3 minutes.
To our ears, the vocal could use a small cut around 1kHz to reduce the occasional ‘nasal’ tone in certain parts of the song. Also, a cut around 6kHz on the snare track would make it sound a little less harsh. Finally, a light compressor/limiter with maybe 3dB of make up gain would bring the overall volume up to match that of similar releases. As always, these are just some ideas from us.
We’ve kept the detail of the song itself to a minimum on this track because, more than anything, it was the journey of the artist and the message behind her song that we feel warrants the most attention.
Keren describes music as literally saving her life. A Rimon Academy for Music graduate, she has developed her own method of teaching that makes music accessible for people with special needs. After a prolonged hiatus from music, she is back with a call-to-action single. The time she spent away from her own music brought on a period of self-destruction and dramatic, life-threatening weight gain. With the help of her music, Keren chose life and lost 150 kilos.
With her partner’s encouragement, she began writing “Keep Walking”, during which her Partner tragically passed away. He only got to hear the first verse & chorus, and the song, which started as a song of empowerment & support, transformed into a piece about Keren’s journey to commemorate her lost love.
Keep Walking is from Keren Ram’s forthcoming debut album and we’re excited to be a part of her journey. Looking forward to hearing more.