Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Paul Vinson – Final Show. It’s always great to have the creativity of Vinson in our ears – this is our third review of his music and each and every time, this Nashville (US) artist brings new skills to the table.
Very clearly not sticking to one genre, Vinson has impressed us with his punky rock track, Drama Queen, as well as the more gentle Americana feeling, Keep Up. Today in our ears, is a slightly country tinged rock song. Vinson is a songwriter with wonderful versatility.
The subject matter for Final Show, in the words of the artist; “On the surface Final Show appears to be a simple love story but there’s there’s a little more to it than that. This song is about falling in love with my partner while she was with someone else and then eventually realizing that we were in love and meant to be.”
Final Show starts with some interesting effects, before blending into an acoustic guitar led track. The drums are clear and simple and convey and definite country rock feel.
There’s an interesting reverb on Vinson’s voice that reminded us a little of the vocals in OMD. The power and rawness of Kings Of Leon comes through in his voice, as with previous releases and with the addition of some extremely well placed harmonies, the ultra-catchy choruses take on a slightly Bon Jovi feel. There’s just the odd nod to Travelling Wilburys here too! Vinson has some serious scope in his writing!
There’s some lovely changes of rhythm at around 2 minutes 30 that then leads into a superb fuzzy electric guitar solo. We like how the electric guitar and vocals trade off each other towards the end, before the song ends as it begins; with gentle strums and cool effects fading out.
From a production perspective, we found there is some unnecessary rumble in the sub bass area so a hi-pass around 35Hz would clear that up. The acoustic guitar in the intro is resonating on the F so a surgical cut at 174Hz would make it less noticeable. To our ears the vocal is a little ‘honky’ in a few place so a couple of tiny cuts around 600Hz and 1500Hz might reduce that quality in the tone. Finally, a wide boost across the high mids and highs centred around 8kHz would add brightness and clarity to the track on the whole.
It’s always nice to see Paul Vinson’s name reach the top of our reviews pile. A talented and creative songwriter who sticks to his own path and refuses to be pigeonholed. A true artist.