A whimsical singer-songwriter defining her range.

It‰’s hard to believe Zella Day only wrote songs for her acoustic guitar while she was growing up in the Arizona mountains. It is obvious from her two-track EP that her compositions are anything but simplistic. In “Sweet Ophelia‰” it is all about the build up to the climactic moment and the fall back down. As the music builds and powerful bursts of sound start breaking out to the surface, her vocals turn from sweet and whimsical to a more beautiful, fuller, and raspier timbre, before returning to the original roots. It is the more upbeat of the two, and will make a lot of indie pop fans pleased. “1965‰” matches “Sweet Ophelia‰” with the amount of importance placed on the rise in the music to the chorus, except it‰’s a more raw performance from Zella Day. Instead of a synthetic sound, the violins make it appear more natural, emphasizing her lyrics “can we go back to the world we had.‰” This is a nice pairing of the two songs in her debut release.

RIYL: Cults, Lykke Li, Wild Belle
Recommended Tracks: 1