German duo, Moonlight Thief, have released their latest single, 4AM and we’re bowled over here at Send Me Your Ears by some beautiful vocals.
4am is a song about the desperate feelings at the end of a relationship and the pain inside that the vocalist is trying to convey is picked up clearly in her voice.
I was reminded in places of Dolores O’Riordan, Alanis Morrisette and just a touch of Thea Gilmore. There’s some real angst in the voice here and you can really feel the raw emotion. Despite an exceptional emotional performance, the voice is well controlled and extremely characterful. There’s a fragility; an urgency in the voice which is supremely endearing.
Littered with really interesting and passionate vocals; “what’s gone is gone, I cannot fix this wreck that I’ve become” , the first half of 4am manages to make you feel such sympathy for the plight of the vocalist.
Half way through the song, everything changes. Suddenly, you’re into an instrumental full band sound as opposed to the acoustic guitar led first half. Its an odd change that made me feel like the time I watched Dusk Til Dawn for the first time! I thought I was getting the hang of the song and suddenly everything changed.
There’s a great tone to the guitar during the solo, and some rather unique left to right panning and then all of a sudden we’re back to a vocal section, but with a full band sound backing up the vocals.
There’s some lovely spots of harmony vocal in this section and it feels like a more powerful version of the first half but I’m left a little confused. The join between sections just feels a little chaotic.
I couldn’t help but notice just the occasional timing issue on the track once the full band is happening. Something’s not quite gelling together smoothly.
I’m absolutely in love with this vocal performance. From a recording perspective, I think there’s just a little too much sibilance in the vocal track. Try standing at a 45 degree angle to the mic to ameliorate this in future. Personally I’d add a little hall reverb to the overall track to make it all gel together a bit more cohesively, but all this is just one producers opinion.
Moonlight Thief are one we’ll be watching. There’s a world class quality in the vocalist, together with some superb lyricism. Great stuff!
We give this song four ears out of five
