Browsing Tag

female vocalist

Polyphonic Pop for People Who Text and Delete in Gabriella Lin’s ‘Like I Used To’

Posted on 13 April 2026

Gabriella Lin has perfected the art of delivering bitter-sweet euphony through polyphonic pop harmonies, evidenced in her latest leagues-ahead-of-the-curve single, Like I Used To. Imagine if Sabrina Carpenter’s songs weren’t engineered to simply be superficial ear candy, then envisage Taylor Swift if she were actually relatable, and you’ll get an idea of what the indie singer-songwriter delivered with Like I Used To, which lingers in the push-and-pull tension of a relationship where complete radio silence is the only absolute until it is broken in yet another rekindling of a romance that was never going to fully bloom.

There is a very specific emotional space this single lives in, the aftermath, the almosts, the texts you type and delete, the strange comfort of unfinished stories. The polyphonic harmonies act like emotional echoes, reinforcing the sense that nothing in this relationship ever truly ends; it just pauses, regroups, then starts again under slightly different circumstances. The songwriting leans into emotional honesty and narrative clarity with almost a Y2K conversational candour, allowing the listener to sit inside the unresolved tension and resonate within it.

Raised between New Zealand and Southern China before later studying at Berklee College of Music, Gabriella Lin brings a global perspective and a musical theatre-influenced understanding of melody and storytelling into her indie pop sound, which will undoubtedly travel further than she has during her trips around the sun.

Like I Used To is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lora Lox Exhibited the Feverish Grace of a Retro-Soul Siren in Her Latest Single, Temptress

Posted on 14 December 2025

Lora Lox delivered opulent ear candy in its purest form with her latest single, Temptress. Swanky, fiery, and hooky in equal measure, Temptress invites you to imagine what Winehouse might sound like if she were still haunting the charts with something fresh enough for today’s soul stratosphere. Her powerhouse vocals, unreckonable around all the right edges and demure in all the right places, weave through glossy production that shimmers like it’s been dusted with diamonds. But underneath the gloss, those old school British soul roots keep the track grounded in something raw, real, and richly textured.

Now that Lola Young is on hiatus, there are few artists more ready to pick up the baton. Lox’s ability to seduce with nothing but feverish grace, energise through hypnotic melodies, and leave an empowering imprint makes her a triple threat in a scene still crying out for something that cuts through. Temptress began as a chorus echoing in her head for years—once she sang it to collaborators Dave, Stephen, and her sister, it bloomed into a slow-burning anthem of forbidden indulgence. The middle eight twists open into a more enchanted space, elevating the temptation to something downright otherworldly.

As metaphor meets melody, Lox captures the exact moment when logic and lust clash: “He’s poison, I know, but he’s looking kinda cute…” The thrill of surrender oscillates through every word, letting you lean into the fire, just to see how it feels.

Temptress is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

Hannah Lacava exposed the vulnerability behind independence in her Y2K RnB Pop release, All Out of Pretend

Posted on 24 November 2025

Hannah Lacava tore off the façade in All Out of Pretend, a seminal single that illuminates the darker side of the increasingly lauded strong-single-and-independent archetype. Built on sax-lit lustre and aesthetics that flick memories back to chart-ruling early-2000s glamour, the track becomes far more than a nod to Y2K pop. Tinges of RnB restore the era when each lyric landed like an affirmation, while Lacava’s dynamically expansive delivery makes it clear that her volition as a powerhouse singer-songwriter resists any pastiche. She spins through a whirlwind of emotion, leaving ear-hooking motifs, sky-skimming vocals, and lines that spike the soul as she voices what many leave unspoken. It is nostalgia-kissed euphoria with a conscience, with the cabaret-esque sparkle and the vocal command converging into a searing statement of intent.

The single was a precursor to the Chicago native’s LP, False Love Identity, which was released on the 14th of November and explores love, lust, and self-empowerment through a pop lens sharpened by years of graft, collaborations, and radio momentum. Across her catalogue, she moves from flirtatious to defiant to bare-souled, yet keeps melody-magnet choruses front and centre. If All Out of Pretend  is your first introduction to Lacava, it will be an unforgettable one.

All Out of Pretend is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tabitha Booth reimagined Bowie’s Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide with Tori-Amos-esque flickers and volcanic emotional release

Posted on 23 November 2025

Tabitha Booth proved long ago that authenticity and originality sit at the core of everything she touches, and in Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide, taken from her LP Sound and Vision: The Songs of David Bowie, she turns that unyieldingly affecting magnetism toward a celebration of Bowie that never slips into imitation.  Throughout the LP, she deconstructs some of the most revered songs ever written and places her own artful spin on each arrangement, but it is in Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide that she reaches the zenith of her ability to find fresh avenues of evocative intensity.

As the queen of histrionic-pop-rock crescendos, in this string-carved release, she starts with a trickle of Tori Amos-esque pianos beneath the raw power in her vocals, which feel like the harmonic equivalent of tearing out your soul and screaming into the void with a plea to confront the tragedy before building the single into an inferno of urgency in the vein of Queen and The Last Dinner Party. She refuses to let you believe there is nothing new to take from this iconic piece of Bowie canon. It is rife with grief, romanticism, and spiralling social commentary that hits just as hard today as when Bowie penned it.

Creativity runs in Booth’s blood as the daughter of celebrated macabre artist Paul Booth, and she has shaped a reputation as a rare performer capable of turning ethereal rock and meditative pop into something spellbinding. Her award-winning originals, her improvisational instincts onstage, and her ability to soar vocally while pulling emotion from unexpected corners have allowed her to perform at venues from Webster Hall to Wonderbar. Represented by Mint400 Records, she continues to prove that reinvention is a living force, and Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide stands as her latest testament to that instinct.

Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Blvck Toxxine channelled collective burnout into post-hardcore catharsis

Posted on 7 November 2025

Blvck Toxxine used their debut single, Out of Time, to protest against the pressure-cooker nature of reality, where exploring and living autonomy has become a luxury. The frustration within the collective sense of exhaustion runs deep in the gnarled veins of the Manchester-based melodic metal outfit’s seminal track. Through gutturally tensile slams of bass strings, an all-out skin-beating assault, and distorted, friction-fuelled guitars, Blvck Toxxine delivered a visceral release that feels like a scream against existence itself.

Symphonic glimpses of redemption bleed through the electronic synthetics, which cascade into post-hardcore glitched-out disassociation. The juggernautical earworm visualises the exhaustion of knowing you’re wearing someone else’s skin just to survive. With screamed vocals that match the unflinching ferocity of My Ruin, Poppy, and In This Moment, the band twists despair into defiant catharsis. The harmonic stretches don’t soothe so much as sanctify, creating a sense of salvation in the noise.

Led by Jane Lacey, the Manchester-born project merges djent, experimental electronics and emotional confrontation into a sound that embodies the corrosion and resilience of modern mental strain. Thematically, Out of Time reflects the fight to exist under the suffocating metric of self-improvement, where even healing feels commodified. Rather than surrender to the static of the world, Blvck Toxxine weaponises it, ripping through toxic expectations to find oxygen on the other side of anguish. For a band so steeped in chaos, their clarity hits harder than any distortion pedal could.

Out of Time is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast

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Emotion whiplashed through JANAYAH’s indie pop-rock powerplay, ‘Bad Taste’

Posted on 3 November 2025

JANAYAH is writing her boldest chapter to date in her indie pop rock era. Throughout her discography, she’s proven herself as a scintillating sonic shapeshifter, but whatever form she takes, there’s no compromise to the livewire current of her signature emotive energy. Bad Taste is no exception; it’s pure indie pop-rock perfection.

Seamlessly shifting between melancholically moody, sticky-sweet, and firebranded with hard-fought-for resilience, JANAYAH backs the nurture over nature argument as she illustrates, through her high-octane vignette, how we’re constantly forced to reckon with ourselves to come out stronger. Especially when someone’s seen the softest corners of us and twisted them for their gain. There’s strength here, but it’s not posturing. It’s blood-soaked and breathless, layered over riffs that punch through and hooks that land in the psyche long after the track ends.

Born in New Zealand and now based in London, JANAYAH’s creative range is as far-reaching as her geographical roots. From her early stage and screen appearances to recording vocals for Dancing with the Stars New Zealand at just 16, she’s long known how to command attention. Her debut EP Stepping Stones captured her evolution, moving between stripped-back ballads, Drum & Bass adrenaline, and rock-laced confessionals. But Bad Taste is where she grabs the wheel and slams the accelerator. It’s the sound of a siren who’s done shrinking herself, ready to unapologetically fill the rooms she’s anxiously occupied.

Bad Taste is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘Naked’ channelled vulnerability, sensuality, and soul through Jessica Lollato’s ethereal RnB lens

Posted on 11 October 2025

Jessica Lollato stripped back all pretences in her latest Y2K RnB pop single, Naked. Sensuous doesn’t come close to describing the way the caressingly ethereal instrumentals find a mellifluous rhythm beneath her harmonies, which effortlessly resonate as a gravitational pull through the production. As the Sydney-based singer-songwriter locks into the soul’s need to see someone as they truly are, the vulnerability breaks through the artifices the world is always hiding behind.

With a tempo that tantalises and a vocal presence that drips divinity into contemporary RnB, Naked hits with purpose. It’s not performative, it’s a bare-skinned embrace of intimacy and emotional exposure, wrapped in production that gently shimmers without ever trying too hard to seduce. There’s a graceful strength to Lollato’s delivery, one that lets the depth of the lyricism linger long after the track’s final sigh.

Raised on the early 2000s soundtracks of Brandy, Ashanti, and Destiny’s Child, Lollato modernises the emotional core of the 00s RnB era with a sincerity that never strays into sentimentality. Her smooth vocal tonality translates into a hypnotic love language, speaking directly to listeners who still crave RnB with something real running through its veins. With Naked, Lollato doesn’t hold back, and it’s precisely that emotional availability that will keep her growing in a scene struggling to remember what authenticity feels like.

Naked is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lene – The Journey: An Alt-Indie RnB Sojourn for the Soul

Posted on 15 September 2025

Lene unravelled an indie jazz soul sojourn with The Journey, a single that transcends beyond the airwaves and leads listeners into an aural utopia where timbres impart catharsis and textures climb ever higher, yet the production stays grounded with its stylistic nod to indie aesthetics. Built on sultry electric piano, a lush bassline, and synth layers, the sound wraps around a heady fusion of funk, jazz, and R&B.

Her husky yet ethereally hypnotic harmonies carry a magnetism reminiscent of Macy Gray, coasting over grooves and oscillations of pure resolve, culminating in a jazz blues guitar solo so arresting it could stop your pulse mid-beat. Beyond the tantalising melodicism, Lene breaks from soul convention by crafting a vignette full of questions, anxiety, and lament, yet she filters both the bitter and the sweet through a kaleidoscope of colour, proving there is always rhythm to be found in the chaos.

The Milan-born, Austin-based singer and pianist has shared stages with jazz luminaries and gained national acclaim in Italy before bringing her sound stateside, where The Journey marks a new chapter of groove-infused introspection. Following the release of this seminal single, Lene is set to release her new LP, which was produced in LA with Mark Evich.

The Journey is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Isabelle Gitlin Demands Full Surrender with Primal-Funk-Infused Pop in ‘Feel My Soul’

Posted on 25 August 2025

Once you submerge yourself into the scintillation of Isabelle Gitlin’s Feel My Soul, you’ll instantly realise that the title isn’t a request, it’s a demand; an unflinching expression of her need to disrupt perception through a visceral reflection of who she is.

The way her harmonies resound and reverberate through the textured production, moving past the point of synergy and into full vocal dominion, affirms that Gitlin is a force of nature. Her vocals don’t sit on top of the instrumentals; they inhabit them, pulsing through each beat with a sense of metaphysical soul that feels both ancient and immediate.

While Feel My Soul radiates with infectious pop magnetism, the slick splinters of funk elevate it far above disposable disco-tinged pop. It carries primal intensity, not in opposition to its mainstream appeal, but woven directly into its core. It’s an impossible paradox that only makes sense when wrapped around a track this instinctively bold.

Hailing from Boston, Gitlin is now working on a full collection of songs that promise to keep bleeding soul into the bones of pop. If this is her leap into the future, she’s already landed.

Feel My Soul is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

Angelina Christina set indie RnB ablaze with the smoky jazz-infused declaration of self-empowerment, ‘You’re the One’

Posted on 5 August 2025

Angelina Christina ignited contemporary indie RnB against sparks of old-school soul and the smooth, smoky smouldering timbres of jazz in her debut single, You’re the One. While the title might suggest a fawning love song, Christina marked her presence with a subversively empowering track that channels the love she was starved of in a toxic relationship back into herself. The celestial zeal in her harmonies makes clear how unshackling it feels to stop measuring your worth by how others treat you.

This track captures a rare authenticity; its dreamy production floats effortlessly over heartfelt vocals, layered with real voice memos from friends that lend intimacy and strength. Christina’s delivery is as vindictive as it is stylish; more than that,  it’s a reminder that self-worth forms the foundation of love. She refuses to be underestimated, proving with this debut that she is an unreckonable conduit of soul and power.

You’re the One dropped on July 19 and is already a defining statement from an artist poised to carve her own space in indie RnB’s landscape.

You’re the One is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast