Project Description
NIKITA
‘Stones’
Single Review
Reviewer – Dave Bruce
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Nikita is a young singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia whose emotionally mature debut release belies her age. Stones is a piano ballad that aims for the head and heart with an officiously confident and rousing vocal performance by Nikita that relies on soaring melodies as well as the bittersweet broodings of everyday life. A love song about protection and care, beneath which is the suggestion that what is at stake here is suffused to the complexities of forbidden love.
Nikita has done a lot of the prerequisite training singer-songwriters need to do these days, the busking, the bar and cafe residences, the outdoor festivals, the support slot gigs—and it shows. Her voice is a tidal wave of emotional force, and this song showcases not only all that live experience but her undeniable musical gifts.
The track begins in earnest with a wistful piano line then segues into the verse, Nikita’s voice at a lower register, extracting all the empathetic inflexions out of the brooding lyric. The pre-chorus follows, which has been intensified by the production, despite Nikita’s voice also elevating to another level. Once the chorus hits all is unleashed. Nikita’s vocal soars above the instrumentation, the piano, strings and machine beats, until it reaches a resolving crescendo with the chorus tag, which only reveals yet another tag that’s perhaps the most intimate section of the song, with Nikita pleading, ‘I got you, I got you’, delivered with quiet power and a skeletal piano backing.
More of the same happens until we reach the bridge, which has a slightly different melodic feel about it but no less potent. It extends into the more dramatic side of this song and is further proof of the sheer cyclonic strength of Nikita’s voice. This debut will no doubt get a lot of attention and it’s easy to understand why; a gifted vocalist communicating a melodically solid pop ballad with a clear and penetrating message running through it.
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Check out NIKITA below
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