Music Review // iskwē "nīna"

 

https://iskwe.bandcamp.com/album/n-na

If you have not yet heard the music of iskwē through singles then you are really missing out.   As the singles feel like pieces of the puzzle, listening to the album "nīna" feels like we're finally seeing the bigger picture.   Big piano parts begin this album and there is that whispered type of singing which reminds me of Polly Scattergood.    It kicks into big electronics and just has all of these various influences you can pick out, a little piece of each, to combine and form this one beautiful sound.

That Knight Rider type synth brings out beats and big vocals on "Part Two".   The theme on this album is certainly the over the top vocals, as they make every song feel like such a huge deal.   "End Of It All" has this nice driving synth and the album just reminds me of this rare pop sound you don't often hear.   It's not just so much that it reminds me of something from the 1990's or even the early 2000's, because there are also modern touches to this sound, but it's the way they all come together which is so special.

"Blown Away" is this acoustic song with beats while we go into a more dance club / goth / industrial / electro sound on "The Other Side", which is a lot of fun.   I'm hesitant to say "The Crow", but it really just feels like iskwē could fit in so well on a soundtrack like that.   It just feels like you could hear Stone Temple Pilots on the same soundtrack as a song by iskwē because of the PJ Harvey thing as well.   There are certainly elements in here where you just feel like, yeah, iskwē might have the song that sticks out but it'd be in the best possible way.

"Waiting For The Laughter" has these big strings while "Exhale" is just this perfect synth pop song that comes at the end and seems to send you back into society as a better person (hopefully) than you were before you first pressed play.   And before this all also comes the song "I Get High", which is just so catchy and relatable that I'm surprised it's not a radio hit.   But everything iskwē does just seems so important, so next level and just so revolutionary not just for the sound on these songs but for music on the whole.