June Playlist

Hello!

Now I know it’s the first day of July, but since I added another week into my regular schedule, I thought posting the monthly playlist now would work out perfectly for me!

Since the death of George Floyd and the beginning of Black Lives Matter protests happening all over the world, a lot of musicians have been taking out their emotions into their music. For the most part, I have actually fallen in love with quite a bit lately. There were two specific tracks that were released earlier in the month. The first being “ROCKSTAR” by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch. They remixed it for the BLM movement and what I really enjoyed about it was the fact that music wasn’t too loud, so you were forced to hear the lyrics from start to end. Usually, I’m not a huge fan of this but I thought it was just perfect!

The next song is “Love Is Gone” by G-Eazy. This one was a little bit more political forward compared to the other, but like with “ROCKSTAR” the music itself wasn’t as prominent as I would have liked on any other day. Gerald is speaking a lot of truths–actually every single song I listened to, had a lot of truths about our past and present, and whether we in fact deserve peace. I didn’t think he could sing, until about a month ago! When I say, it surprised me, it did. If you listen to his brand new album “Something’s Strange Here” you’ll find out that he has a pretty good singing voice. For those of you who have listened to it, please list your favorites in the comments.

Anyways, those are the only songs I have liked since everything began and I’m sure by the time this post goes live, there will be even more coming out and you know I’ve been adding them into my Spotify playlist.

Here are my Top 20 songs I enjoyed in the month of June!

Take Care Of You by Ella Henderson
Footprints On The Moon by Gabby Barrett
Dust and Bone by Syd Duran
I Love You’s by Hailee Steinfeld
OMG by Camila Cabello featuring Quavo
Martyr Of The Free World by Epica
Sleepwalking by DIAMANTE
Secrets by Written By Wolves
Burning Bridges by Delain
Not That Beautiful by Papa Roach
X by Jonas Brothers featuring KAROL G
Ballad of Terrasen by Victoria Carbol
You Should See Me In A Crown by Halocene
Cut The Cord by Shinedown
Like You’ll Never See Me Again by Alicia Keys
I Take What I Want by Unions
Have You Ever Brandy
I See Fire by Feuerschwanz
Show Stopper by Danity Kane
Revangels by Akoma

Towards the middle of the month, I had a strong urge to get back into one of my favorite genres ever: symphonic metal. The Dutch band Epica are working on their eighth record, and they have been posting short studio vlogs on YouTube. One afternoon I was so bored that I literally watched all five videos and ended up finding a full recording of a concert they did back in 2015, which is after they had released “The Quantum Enigma” and I have to say, it is such a spectacular album and one of my all-time favorite albums. Unfortunately, I haven’t been keeping up with the band itself so when I saw they were on album #8, I was a bit shocked but excited at the same time!

After spending an hour and half listening to nothing but Epica, I made another playlist on Spotify for my favorite songs in the genre itself. I included a lot of albums I’ve listened in the past and picked out some tracks from other bands that I loved but didn’t really care for the whole album too! I’m pretty sure the playlist is over 200 songs by now! I’m not sharing it publicly though – it’s my own personal stash of music to enjoy by myself.

Before I go, I want to include Monday’s review of “Petals” by PHARVOS, in case anyone missed it the first round! Here is also the main monthly playlist as well. Hope you enjoy both links!

What were your listening to in June?

EP Review: “Petals” by Phavors

Hello! 🙂

It has been an awful long time since I’ve done an album/EP review; even longer time since I’ve been asked to do it as well!

Back in mid-May, I was sent a message on my Instagram page from a duo called Phavors. At the time, they were just about to release an EP called “Petals” and wondered if I could write a review of it on my blog. They are my first group to be based in the U.S. to ask for my services, and even though I feel more comfortable talking about international music, I thought it would be fun for not only me, but for my audience too!

So, when the band sent me their pitch and link to the tracks included on the EP. They also included that they sound like Bon Iver but have elements of Billie Eilish, which is what sold me. I’m not a huge fan of folk music, even though I love singer-songwriters Dido, Celtic Woman, Sarah McLachlan, and The Civil Wars; I’m still pretty picky when it comes to the genre as a whole. However, I chose to look beyond that and focus my attention to Philip and Kayla’s work. I hadn’t listened to anything before I went to write this review, it’s just what I like to do for things such as this, that way I’m not overthinking my words as the music flowing in and out of my mini speaker.

The EP itself only comes with four songs, and the first happens to be the title track “Petals.”  My first thought was how beautiful it was, the light sound of the acoustic guitar with Kayla’s soft vocals, were really nice. It reminded me of waking up early and wanting something soft and mellow to begin the day on the right foot. It’s a soothing song that suddenly made me really calm inside. It’s the perfect way to begin a short musical journey. And then we move onto, “Waste Time” and I’m not going to lie, I wanted to use the title as a pun, but I didn’t. I was good, but boy! It would’ve been perfect. One thing I liked about this, was we were finally able to hear Philip’s voice. He is definitely quieter than Kayla. I really liked the slight boop of bass in the beginning, it made me think the general sound would be a little different compared to the first and it is different. I had the same vibes I experienced in the previous, but the tempo is more upbeat and happier.

Third is “Water Is Still” and I was actually looking forward to this one. I had hoped it would sound calm; almost like you should expect to hear it at a spa. In a way, it was exactly how I hoped it would be, but thanks to the addition of electric guitars to the airy beat in the background it gave it a nice little change. It was the perfect instrumental for me. I was so happy to hear something like this, where there’s no vocals at all. It’s just a nice collection of soothing sounds together. Lastly, we have “Home” and to hear Kayla and Philip’s soft words come into focus and together was wonderful, but towards the end of it, everything grows louder and I really liked it.

I was genuinely surprised by this. There were moments when I thought of them sounding like artist Banks and British band London Grammar in a way, like the second track gave me a strong Banks vibe with Kayla’s cool voice, but the whole thing had a London Grammar type of flare. I find it a bit odd that I was half expecting everything to sound a bit like Dido, but they ended up sounding more modern, almost new age type of music that I am learning to fall in love with in the last few years. After I finished listening, I started searching on my Spotify playlists for more comforting type of music like Phavors. After what’s been going on with the world lately, I needed to escape my reality a little longer.

Have you heard of Phavors yet? If you have, do you have a favorite song? What were your thoughts on their new EP too?