Sano Hill has just released a new single, The Climb. This is a beautiful Irish-sounding full band singer-songwriter track. Songs of love, loss and life seem to be the theme of this artist. This is his debut single. What a great start.
Sano Hill clearly has a good team behind him; working with a renowned producer and for someone who is working on their debut album, his social media is doing well already.
There’s some absolutely spot on use of reverb on this track, throughout, not just on the vocals. Vocally, I was reminded of Suede, or Mike Scott from the Waterboys. Especially Mike’s song “Bring ‘em all in”.
There’s some really creative drumming on this track. It’s not just a basic sound that’s been added because you should have drums in a song. The drumming is really well considered and interesting and adds nuances all of its own. I especially like the kind of side-stick work that’s just there for no good reason other than to make you pay attention to the drums!
The Climb is a simple song that doesn’t pull any punches. That’s not a bad thing – what I mean is that the chord sequence is predictable and the thing that carries it is the captivating vocals and the great use of rise and fall in the instrumentation. At 4 minutes, there was nowhere that I was wondering if it was time to wrap up the song, it just washes over you.
The stinger ending and the overall feel of the song makes me think this may be the kind of track that would work well for searching out a sync deal for TV. Interesting enough to be captivating, but predictable enough to be setting the scene. Perfect TV music!
Personally, and of course, just my opinion, I felt the vocals were lost in a few places once lots of instruments were fighting for attention. Perhaps a little more compression and an overall boost in the top 3 octaves will bring a little more life in to the track and bring the vocals forward.
I’d give a bit of a boost around 50hz too to bring out the kick drum, but again, all just my personal preference.
The Climb is a great Irish Singer-Songwriter tune that is inventive, emotional and totally and utterly from the heart. Great stuff.
We give this track four ears out of five
