OFFICIAL: http://www.juliamcdonaldmusic.com/
Written
by Lance Wright, posted by blog admin
The
six song EP Gravity is a monumental debut for nineteen year old Florida native
Julia McDonald and gets opens up a new avenue of her musical journey loaded
with promise. Many times we hail newcomers for the remarkable maturity displayed
in their art, but it seems almost feeble to suggest with McDonald. She clearly
has much to offer the pop world, but there isn’t a single cut on Gravity that
smacks of pandering to takes short cuts to garner the listener’s attention. The
songs on Gravity explore experiences and interpersonal relationships with rare
insight, a flash of the poetic, and undeniable vulnerability. Her ability to
bring these lyrics to life with incredibly dramatic phrasing is another facet
of her presentation that helps put everything over the top. There isn’t a hint
of filler on Gravity and the confidence she displays on each of its songs is
nothing less than inspiring.
The
title song begins things quite auspiciously. “Gravity” has a relaxed tempo and
relies on acoustic guitar more than any other single instrument. There are
light keyboard touches scattered through the song and the drumming gives this
opening performance quite a solid foundation. Exactly like the EP’s other
songs, the title number has great focus and shows McDonald’s penchant for
avoiding any self indulgence. Acoustic guitar threads its way through the
second song “Games” and the keyboard presence, while tasteful, is much stronger
here, but it’s a far busier affair than the opener. McDonald handles the challenging
vocal melody with great skill and conveys each line with the attentiveness it
deserves. Keyboards and a compelling percussion track give “Pretty Committee” a
very different feel than we’ve encountered so far on Gravity, but this
illustration of McDonald’s diversity is quite credible and rates among the best
songs on the release. “No Good for Me” has some of the best lyrics featured on
the EP and is a relatively rueful look at a doomed connection. The first person
point of view makes it a rather intimate experience and its unflinching
appraisal of the narrator’s behavior sets it far apart from the usual pop song.
There’s
a surprising amount of attitude coming from the EP’s penultimate song “Something
to Talk About”, but it shares some similarities with the previous tune in the
way it embraces a singer/songwriter aesthetic while still operating along
clearly commercial lines. Much of its ultimately satisfying impact comes from
McDonald’s vocal. Her phrasing really makes the most out of the lyric and
imparts just enough velocity to key lines that it gives the performance a lot
of its occasionally biting flavor. The musical intensity is further ramped up
with the EP’s concluding number “Simpler Things”. McDonald has the sort of
command over orchestrating dramatic tracks that many listeners might associate
with rock bands and the heavy-hitting focus of a song like this, despite its
moody air, makes for an excellent ending to Julia McDonald’s debut release.
There’s a second EP soon to follow and, based on this effort alone, one can
only assume that her ascent will continue unabated.
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