When listening to a piece of music that combines the ordinary with the extraordinary, it’s hard not to get hooked. Distinctly, when the artist tackles the ordinary, the result is an empathic and compassionate earnestness that burgeons whenever the listener is able to wholly relate to the track. Conversely, when the artist tackles the extraordinary and the endless possibilities that reside in music and songwriting, the outcome is the listener’s access to utopias only available through said sonic device. If a track starts see-sawing between these antithetic extremes, you have got yourself one hell of a track.
I.AM.L must be aware of this. The Irish-born, Brighton-based artist formerly known as Laura May debuts with her first single, “Lionheart”, and it’s unforgivingly intense. The song was inspired and dedicated to May’s grandmother, a strong and matriarchal figure in the songwriter’s life, and is injected with the steroid-like grandeur of a fantasy movie soundtrack, transforming the maternal forebear into a blade-swinging crusader.
Starting off quietly and whimsical with fairy-like vocals and piano accompaniment, May introduces the listener to familiar grounds of affection and respect with a voice sweeping yet firm, before crashing into the track’s chorus that’s sustained by a barrage of war drums and a phantasmagoric choir. Swinging constantly from quiet to loud with manic energy, “Lionheart” is a passionate hand in heart dedication of whirring sounds and hollow electronics - an unstoppable force of nature of a track.
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