In today’s musical landscape, many artists and bands desperately try to reinvent the same old wheel by tirelessly copying their favorite artists, exploring the same old techniques invented by the greats decades ago, or simply aiming for that old, boring, repetitious, and bland sound. Thankfully, there are still artists like Jonny Westwood who are breaking the rules and shapeshifting the boundaries of contemporary music. With “Brightest Fire,” his critically acclaimed extended play released last year, this exceptional Australian artist demonstrates that modern music still has so much to offer. Lyrically, this material explores themes such as love, various sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, so it’s a highly relatable set of songs that will immediately resonate with the broader auditorium. Across five cleverly assembled and flawlessly performed compositions, he navigates the complexities of life by delivering a one-of-a-kind sonic experience worth revisiting over and over again. Sonically, Jonny Westwood combines various techniques, different approaches, and many complementary music genres to illustrate such a luxuriant sonic imagery. He incorporates singer-songwriter approaches and techniques over modern alt-pop, but you’ll also notice how some of the finest properties borrowed from dark pop, indie pop, alternative folk, and other similar styles found their way into this sonic equation. Although his music resonates with qualities that meet all the trends in contemporary music production, you’ll also notice a subtle touch of nostalgia lurking around and spicing things up even more. Therefore, these experimentaitons with many various approaches, different techniques, and complementary styles resulted in a set of catchy, memorable, engaging songs that will not only appeal to alt-pop fans, but anyone who appreciates high quality music performed straight from the heart.
As soon as you press play, you’ll notice how the opening notes of “Together Forever” immediately wrap around your listening apparatus and lead on an epic journey through an expansive sonic universe, built upon calm, soothing, relaxing melodies and beats. Jonny Westwood gradually shapes this song by incorporating the interplays between marvelous keys, catchy guitar works, intricate basslines, and moderate rhyhtmic patterns. In the meantime, his excellent vocal performance brings more depth and complexity to the song, making it even more pleasant to the ears. “Nothing Better” continues in the same style, but with more luxurious synth works and majestic chord progressions included along the way. The combination of semi-distorted guitars and lush synths creates an addictive, hypnotic, and irresistible sound, while his soulful, passionate, sincere, confident, emotive, and powerful vocal performance elevates everything to new heights, commands attention, and guides listening apparatus from start to finish. The artist thoroughly planned everything, and this is one of those track where his songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing abilities shines in the limelight. This epic sonic journey continues with the title track, a perfect showcase of Jonny Westwood’s experience, knowledge, creativity, skills, and talent. He poured all those brilliant ideas and superb orchestrations into each segment, presenting a fresh, unique, innovative, exciting take on alt-pop music. The way guitars resonate with all those reverby themes, melodies, harmonies, and chord progressions while the synths float above makes “Brightest Fire” such a fascinating composition. It’s nearly mindblowing how all those layers articulate without overwhelming each other while the intricate low-end notes and percussive beats offer more heaviness, clarity, and depth to those calm instrumentations. On the other hand, a track like “Living For The Weekend” demonstrates Westwood’s versatility as an artist and willingness to push his music beyond the classic alt-pop sound. This track brings more alt-folk and psych-pop influences while the artist simultaneously remains loyal to the primary sonic direction. It carries so many catchy, memorable, calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal instrumentations that will immediately force you to spin this track over again. This magnificent extended play closes with “Circles,” a perfect composition that sums everything up. The robust percussions and warm-sounding basslines play a significant role, as they contribute groove and detail to the ambiance while the reverby guitars collide with calm synth works. Each instrument has its place and purpose in this sonic equation, making this material worth repeating over and over again.
With “Brightest Fire,” Jonny Westwood proves that modern alt-pop music can still sound innovative and exciting. His songwriting and composing abilities go beyond comprehension so many times during this majestic journey, as he poured heart and soul into his music. “Brightest Fire” carries some of the finest alt-pop songs you’ll hear in a while, so you should immediately place this masterpiece on your music radar. Head to your favorite streaming platform and check it out!
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