Sugar Relics has just released their latest single, Can’t Stay Awake, and it’s a really unique genre-bending adventure.
You might call this electro-pop, and sure, there are places where the vocals are heavily tuned and the instrumentation throughout veers towards a very electronic style. However, Laura Serafine’s voice in the verses reminded me very much of the kind of female metal artists, such as Evanescence. There are moments in the song where the quality and style of the vocals verge on musical theatre.
This is a 3 1/2 minute almost anthemic piece of music. I just can’t get my head around how smoothly this crosses genres and how catchy this song is. I think this is a song which will cross age groups well, as well as genres. The electronic style will bring in the younger audience and the vocal gymnastics in the verses will appeal to an older audience.
There’s something really very classy about the vocals on this track. Laura has a really well executed belt voice and I can hear that she’s absolutely mastered that twang that cuts through on the higher notes. There is so much character in her voice and I can hear the breathiness and the deliberate vocal “creak” that indicate that Laura wasn’t singing especially loud when this was recorded, but she has nailed that metallic sound in her voice.
I like how in places the lead vocal is doubled with an octave lower voice. A smart trick to bolster up the lead and it works well here.
This is a super-catchy song that, regardless of your genre preferences, I have no doubt is a real hit. Standing at a radio friendly length with modern production I can see that with the right marketing campaign this will do well.
Lyrically, an interesting subject matter; the song speaks to those of us who battle in our own minds not to just sleep the day away if we find ourselves in a bad place.
From my own perspective on the production, there’s a lot of information in the sub bass that anyone without a very very decent subwoofer simply won’t hear. This is wasted energy and reducing everything in the master below 100Hz will help give the track more headroom. A boost in the low mids around 150-200 will help balance out the all important low end and give the snare some real meat
Can’t stay awake is an energetic track that demands to be heard. With exquisite lead vocals and a super catchy chorus what’s not to love?
We give this song 4 ears out of 5
