Synth EP Review: “Empty Promises” by A Days Wait & Color Theory

by Karl Magi

A Days Wait & Color Theory’s “Empty Promises” EP takes listeners on a mournful, tender journey through complicated emotions. This is music for the soul and the heart which touches me deeply as it unfolds.

“Empty Promises” begins with an expansive synth carrying a breezy melody out above smoothly intertwining guitar. The lead singer’s voice is wistful and full of tenderness, while the rhythm cruises easily and a synth dances with affectionate light. The drums clash as a glimmering background is woven by Color Theory, with a piano that twinkles like sunlight.

The underpinnings slide on as the lead singer’s gently touching vocals mix melancholy with a dreamy feeling and the synth line bubbles with delicate smoothness. Bell tones ring as the drum beat adds shape. The piano swirls and glistens while the vocals wrap around me with hurting tenderness and move me. The foundation drifts again as the rippling notes shine and silence falls.

“It feels like my very first time away, making empty promises again,” as he sees the song’s subject hanging around all day. He adds, “I was trying to keep you safe. It seemed like we should have had it all, but now it seems that we should go.” Coming back around again, on the road back home, he thought they’d make it out alive, but he was losing hope. He continues, “It’s not the very first time I’ve said I don’t feel like growing up.”

“Now I see you hanging around my head,” and he understands what that’s all about. He points out that “we won’t make it on our own if we fall apart,” so they’ll have to “muddle forward to the tune of a beating heart.”

A deeply reverberating synth carries a slightly mysterious melody over steadily throbbing drums to start “New Souls.” A synth quickly flickers with shadowy sensations and the lead singer’s velvety, emotionally broken voice carries the wandering melodic line. A glockenspiel sparkles as the lead singer’s sweet, pained voice delivers a soothing melody, while the bright synth glows with soft sensations.

I am transported by the emotional power of the vocalist while Color Theory creates luscious softness. As the pattering rhythm adds form, galactic tones gleam and the underpinnings guide the other sounds. The lead singer’s voice has a thoughtful fragility, while the piano wraps around the words with a sense of contemplation and lightness before the song ends.

“Headed for a reset, I’ve been lying to the people I don’t know yet,” and living in places the narrator won’t go. He adds, “Hold my hand and maybe you and I can follow slow.” He says there’s a room in the basement full of all the things he’s replacing. He goes on to say, “Step outside and we could forage for a new soul.” He’s been trying to do that, but can never make it whole. “Then the long nights arrive when it starts to fall apart inside.”

“I was wrong to say that I didn’t know and now the words are holding me back,” and as our storyteller would trade for a newer soul that is “purpose built for you to unpack.” He finds himself on the defensive and says, “We are depleted and absolved from all the repent.” He invites the song’s subject to take a step outside and “let the virtues start to unfold, I’ve been dying to exonerate the untold.”

As the song concludes, the narrator says, “I could try to be somebody, let you model me in your way. Everything between is always all for you.”

Synth Single Review: “Last Christmas (Wham cover)” by Electrobite

by Karl Magi

Electrobite’s “Last Christmas (Wham cover)” captures the classic sounds of the original with a new verve. The cover begins with solidly driving bass and merrily jingling bells as rich synth flows with uplifting energy, contrasting with the bittersweet lyrics. The lead singer’s voice explodes with loving emotion, tinged with melancholy.

Scintillating notes gleam like tinsel in the distance as the lead singer captures all of the energy and sensation that filled the original song. The main melody chimes with celebratory freedom, ringing out as the distant bells add a holiday sensation. The vocal performance is full of interpretive fun while the rhythm throbs strongly.

The infectious chorus grabs me and whirls me into the music as the bells sparkle with effervescent radiance. The beat presses on as the bass adds weight and the synth shines like colorful lights on the snow before the song ends.

The song explores a holiday romance when the narrator gave his heart to someone who broke it. A year later, he recognizes the other person’s coldness and his own vulnerability. Determined not to be fooled again, the narrator doesn’t want to be fooled again so he swears he’ll only give his love to someone who truly values it in the future.

Synth Single Review: “It Finds Us All” by jacket.

by Karl Magi

jacket.’s “It Finds Us All” captures the heart of pain and how we come to deal with it in caressing tones. The track starts as diaphanous sounds tremble out into open space with a tentative lightness. A broad sound field flows out with painful tenderness, capturing loss and wistful memory. This is music that fills me with thought in a quiet flow of feathery sound.

The music is permeated by meditative contemplation as the threadlike notes drift past my ears with melancholy gentleness. I am carried along by the emotional power within these soft notes, transported through my thoughts and memories, touching moments of loss and hurt.

The main melody slowly flows on a synth that reflects aching emotion, sending a pang through me as the music unfolds. Diamond-like notes sparkle in the firmament of tender synth, as the echoing background is cut by scintillating tones and silence falls.

Synth Single Review: “Erase Me” by Megan McDuffee

by Karl Magi

Megan McDuffee’s “Erase Me” examines a dark lust as it unfolds. The song begins as ominous sounds are joined by a rushing beat and shadowy bass. Megan McDuffee’s sensually swirling voice carries a melody that bursts with desire and yearning, adding ardent emotion. As the rhythm throbs, her vocals are full of need, while dark notes intertwine with spectral bells and the heaving low end.

I enjoy Megan McDuffee’s darkly sweet vocal performance, which captures the aching desire within the lyrics. The rhythm moves forward as distant sounds levitate with spectral grace and chiming notes add a hint of starry brightness. The vocals are hushed and full of lust as broadly vibrating, string-like notes create a threatening sensation.

Megan McDuffee’s whispered delivery creates creeping danger behind the desire, and the undulating bass rumbles with muscled power. Her voice carries an enjoyably Gothic tinge as gliding tones echo with trailing, ghostly sensations, and silence falls.

For our storyteller, “tonight is not a usual affair.” Her walls are down and she’s lost her logic, but she doesn’t care. She pleads for the song’s subject to “bite me, taste me, lust erase me.” Everything falls away into the other person's darkness as she says, “I succumb to craving.” She wants to be kissed hard, repeatedly and declares, “I want you, let’s scream into an ending.”

“Beneath the moon, a trade in desire,” as the narrator adds that she’s one of them, if only for an hour. She continues, “Tonight we feast upon each other’s breath,” saying that it isn’t enough and that she needs to be obsessed. She goes on, “Bleed me, feed me, lust erase me,” as everything drops away and she admits she needs the other person, even though “you’ll be the death of me.”

To conclude, she says, “Drink me slow and give me your sweet curse. I’ve let you in now, so hush and do your worst.”