Single Review: Mountains

Alba Rose

Review by Danica Bryant // 16 October 2022
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Single Review: Mountains 1

Alba Rose’s new indie-pop track Mountains is indescribable. Bright and dynamic, simple yet full, it’s a song devoted to following through on your feelings and declaring, “I can’t be scared of love”.

Inspired by a recent trip to Europe, the track’s clear Spanish influence flutters in its romantic acoustic guitars and shaking percussion. Alba blends this worldly sound with elements of electronica. Washed-out background vocals and mysterious keys craft an incredibly unique, genre-blending sound. Whilst Mountains does feel like its dynamics build to something just a little bit bigger that doesn’t quite arrive, it explores a range of different sounds in its runtime, creating a satisfyingly expansive work.

Mountains emphasises Alba’s gentle vocal performance above all else. Her voice is soft and delicate, making her relatively simple lyrics blush with emotion. It’s this delivery that moves the song from simple songwriting to something intimate and inventive. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the visuals for Mountains are so striking. They utilise beautiful baby blues and faded browns to place listeners right into Alba’s imagined world. 

When it comes to putting Alba Rose’s Mountains into words, no comparisons come to mind. It’s a playful and honest track which toys with genre and song structure. The end result is a single from an artist who proves herself entirely in her own lane.

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About the author Danica Bryant

Sharply bitter and sickeningly sweet all at once, Danica Bryant is not your ordinary songwriter. Born to the fruitful music scene in Napier, New Zealand, her songs cover intense topics such as adolescence, mental health, sexuality, and young love. Danica Bryant is “all hard guitar and pain-filled howl” (The Hook NZ) – this woman bites back. Bryant played her first gig at age twelve. Her career ripened when Smokefree Rockquest awarded her the National APRA Lyric Award in 2018, for ‘Dizzy’. The following year, her track ‘Sugarbones’ featured on Play It Strange’s annual songwriting compilation album, and she won their national ‘Who Loves Who’ contest covering Aldous Harding’s ‘Horizon’. Bryant was also selected for mentorship by Bic Runga at her Christchurch Art Centre workshops. After opening for Kiwi legends like Jason Kerrison and Paul Ubana Jones, Bryant was cherry picked to support Elton John on his ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’

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