There’s an air of splendour, an overwhelming feeling of magnificence, that prevails over Aaron Rizzo’s second full length project. The production is avowedly grandiose, filled with huge, vivid, and slightly distorted shoegaze inspired soundscapes that lend themselves to be the backdrop for more classic alternative rock vocals. Through the record’s progression, each song discusses our relationship with chaos and order, our intrinsic desire for adventure and the perennial struggle of being aware and awake.
‘Mirror Talk Blue’ is a unique record. Rizzo’s ability to mesh together a clear electro-pop inspiration with a soft rock emotion is refreshingly inspired. There’s a bit of soppiness to the songs on this record, wherein feelings of nostalgia are inevitably provoked in the listener. It’s in the production that the selling point of this record comes out, a masterfully mixed project that takes what would be otherwise unmemorable singer-songwriter pieces and transforms them into opulent and evocative pieces of thundering impact.
‘Gone Mad’ is my personal highlight from the record. The very first actual single gave me slight memories of Daughtry’s ‘Waiting for Superman’. But it’s chorus was wholly its own, an incredibly exciting and endearing sing-along chant. Songs like ‘To Witness Love’ show the album’s softer side, more in line with what you’d expect from a standard singer-songwriter record. The album revel’s in its softness, in subtle pieces like ‘How Beautiful It Is (To Feel)’. But it also excels in the grandiosity of pieces like ‘Man of Your Time’. It’s wonderfully sung, and masterfully arranged.
If you’re looking for a piece of alternative rock that’s starkly different from what you might have come to expect, ‘Mirror Talk Blue’ will be an experiment you won’t regret. The soft rock dominant, but electronic inspired, experiment from Aaron Rizzo is keenly emotive to the point of being corny at times. But it’s ability to remain out of the box in its delivery makes it an experience well worth your time.
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