Louis Cross is a singer/songwriter from Greater Manchester. Influenced by Ed Sheeran and jazz classics, Cross aims to combine the two in this track, to a strange effect.
The track starts out with a strangely timed acoustic guitar, I imagine aiming for a swung feel but hits the ear strangely until the rest of the instruments kick in. I’d personally have liked to hear the spacey, reverb guitar with drums before this acoustic one.
Despite the bad things I have to say about this song, it holds up amazingly well in terms of the pure songwriting aspect. Instruments linking like pieces of a puzzle perfectly holding each other up, fantastic rhythmic elements combining towards the great end result. The main thing dragging it down is the vocal delivery and melody I think. This is really unfortunate because there is some fantastic potential here.
The next thing to enter is the vocals, which are fairly underwhelming. Failing to hit notes and sitting awkwardly atop the track, I think taking the vocals down a bit would help Cross hit the notes with the emphasis wanted. Throughout the track, there are really strange vocal jumps, for example in the chorus on the phrase “better light“. I think the aim was to follow a jazz-type vibe for this, but the delivery was quite disappointing.
All in all, this track does great to deliver what is promised, with a few letdowns vocally. As previously stated, the instrumentation choices and playing are all really well done. The solo lacks a bit of soul but still sounds good with the tone choices. The main thing I’d suggest Louis work on is either getting comfortable singing in that style so it doesn’t sound so closed off or to lower the vocals down to a more relaxed state to begin with.