Music Review // Niloo "Sour Cherry"

Niloo has created such a sound on the album "Sour Cherry" that even though you might find yourself trying to figure out what it sounds like while listening to it, by the end you're going to end up hearing a genre just created by Niloo.  This is made apparent right away with the song "Under the Blue Dome" which has these acoustics that make it feel almost medieval.  But that sound won't carry on throughout the rest of the album, though the dark and dreamy qualities will.

On the second song, "Evil Eye", there are driving acoustic notes which ride with the percussion.  "Nessa", the lead single, comes in next with those dark guitars.   "Valentines in Kamakura" is when "Sour Cherry" really starts taking off because it has this shift in tempo to where it almost feels more like pop rock or dream pop.  This is that 1950's Buddy Holly era rock n roll which reminds me of artists such as Beach House or Grizzly Coast.

As we get into the fifth song it becomes more apparent what this album is really about: those guitar notes and that voice.  They just shine through here, and as we reach this point it just becomes so obvious that this is what it had been building to, sound wise, all this time.  Everything just falls into place, musically, here.  Dreamy swirls come out on "Yalda" while "Sour Cherry Jam" has those drum rolls and almost becomes psychedelic by the end.  

There are a number of musicians which you can hear within these songs, like Natalie Merchant, Dolores O'Riordan and Fiona Apple (and all the fruit-based names with the title "Sour Cherry" isn't lost on me either) but all of those other musicians you hear will have the same thing in common.  Much like Niloo, these are all people who carved out their own path, they made their own way in music to where when you hear them you immediately recognize it as them and no one else.  With "Sour Cherry", Niloo is well on her way to doing just that as well.