New York based, Lucid Lip, release their latest single, Who Would Notice?, today (29 July 2022), and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying a few listens here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
Who Would Notice is a comment on the Human Condition. With some very dark lyrics, but a positive and uplifting feel to the song, Who Would Notice manages to make the listener think and also be inspired. “I’m not here to sell my soul”
Starting on synth bass notes, for the first 12 seconds or so, you have absolutely no idea where this song is going to go, or even what genre it’s going to be. We like that! When the full band sound does come in with background organs, drums and a beautiful and simple electric guitar solo, you feel transported into a kind of early 80s trance. There’s something about the vocals in the early part of the song that feel very 80s. We can’t quite put our finger on who exactly we were reminded of, but there were definite nods to the early 80s in the styling and nuances of the vocals.
As the song progresses, we were thoroughly impressed with lead vocalist, Frankie Favasuli’s range. Starting the song strongly in a pretty low register, at around 3 minutes in, Frankie’s power in the high notes is very much on display with some superb gravel and passion in his tones. The occasional layered vocals helped bolster the lead vocal well.
Who Would Notice? has some really interesting rhythms and drum patterns throughout the song that impressed us. with panned guitar to the left, the track has some lovely stereo in it as well.
From a production perspective, we feel that there is a gap in the bass around 160Hz, so adding something in that range would thicken the overall low end up bit. The low end is a little muddy so perhaps a hi pass in the bass track would help add some separation and give instruments their own space in the spectrum. A boost around 4kHz would add some definition in places and a boost in the top octave for a little extra brightness and ‘air’
This is a truly unique and fascinating song that we’re really impressed with here at Send Me Your Ears. An interesting and unpredictable chord sequence, superb range in the vocals and some lovely guitar work, this is a song which easily maintained our interest for several listens. Great stuff!