Lena Fayre releases “Cry” single/video
Cry Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rawCMQXnGJY
Dutch born and Los Angeles based singer/songwriter Lena Fayre is rapidly becoming a veteran of the indie music scene at merely nineteen years old with numerous songwriting awards, one full length album, two EP releases, and numerous single already lodged on her list of credits. Her ascension has been remarkable and not driven by public relations alone. Instead, from the outset, Fayre has distinguished herself as being among the brightest young vocal and songwriting talents working in modern pop. She isn’t an outright blinder as a vocalist, but her voice is strong and unsparing while still layered with considerable layers of nuance many of her peers cannot match. Her newest sslf-released single, “Cry”, gives some evidence of her chameleon like ability to move from one genre to another without ever sounding insecure or tentative. Such assurance is rare in older performers, but from Fayre, it’s practically revelatory.
The song’s biggest musical strength is its structure. Fayre shows a keen understanding of songwriting fundamentals reflected in this track’s inexorable and satisfying development. Fayre relies on one of pop music’s more reliable compositional models, juxtaposing lean passages with climatic choruses for example, and the choice pays immediate dividends. “Cry” is a dramatic experience from the first bar onward. The song’s stark opening soon segues into bare bones, but stylish crafted verses that Fayre fills with an impassioned and musical knowing vocal. She sinks her teeth into the chorus with exhilarating relish and, in her hands, the refrain doesn’t sound like concession, but smacks of defiance instead. Despite whatever pain comes, Fayre’s narrator will endure.
She conveys a heart-rending personal message with her lyrics. The roles of the sensitive narrator is a familiar trope in these songs, and make no mistake that “Cry” operates very much within a tradition, but Fayre’s talented enough to spin tradition on its head a little with revealing lines that give vivid specificity to the experience. Fayre isn’t capable of merely dramatizing this song via the music and her voice. Her lyrical content is another mirror into her heart and one that gives us an expansive view of her experience.
Her voice, however, is the song’s central experience and it leaves quite an impression. While listeners to some of Fayre’s earlier material can testify that her voice has impressive range, she does less with more here. There’s no obvious tour de force here, but instead, listeners are treated to a singer who is clearly laser focused on the task at hand and feels every bit of the music in her as she performs. This sort of commitment supersedes everything and can redeem an otherwise weak track. Fortunately, it’s just icing on the cake here.
Lena Fayre scores big again. It’s becoming a common refrain as Fayre piles up a successive string of one quality release after another. There is a sense of momentum building. Her exposure is increasing with each new success and she tackles each new project as if she were debuting all over again sans any butterflies. “Cry” is a marvelous pop song in every respect.
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Michael Saulman