Electro-Rock Band Goes Acoustic
The Naked and Famous are known for their large, anthemic synth-rock hits, so it’s out of the norm for them to come out with an entirely acoustic album. But that was the plan for their latest release Still Heart. Originally from New Zealand and based in Los Angeles, the band has been churning out their arena-ready sounds for over a decade. For them, now seemed like the right time to cover some new musical ground. Their last album was Simple Forms in October 2016. Two of the founding members Aaron Short and Jesse Wood left the band just recently, leaving producer and co-vocalist Thom Powers, vocalist and keyboardist Alisa Xayalith and bassist David Beadle.
The album plays like a greatest hits except every song is the acoustic version. It’s a very intimate and raw playlist. Through Powers’s and Xayalith’s vision, they sound like entirely new material. Powers said, “If you’re going to do an acoustic version, really rewrite the song. Find a completely new approach.” They started performing “unplugged” versions of the songs on their tour supporting Simple Forms and they liked how much they sounded, they wanted to get in the studio and record some of them. Most of the tracks are from their 2010 album fan favorite Passive Me, Aggressive You.
In these stripped versions, Xayalith’s soft vocals envelop the listener as the warm, lush production from Powers fills every track. When two vocals are combined it’s reminiscent of The xx and the band’s shared singing duties. Instrumentation is mostly made up of sweeping synth pads, quiet guitars and vocoder on Xayalith’s voice but rarely any percussion. For example “Punching in a Dream,” which originally featured bombastic drums, instead begins with the delicate “oohing” from Xayalith and carries it like a peaceful lullaby.
“Girls Like You” is a gorgeous, intimate ballad that features gentle, acoustic strumming. It builds on layers of background choir-like vocals and synth bass until it’s humming with emotion. Powers’s earnest vocals carry the track along with a quiet strength.
“No Way” has a soft introduction that feels like an awakening or a beginning of a new season. The production has a cinematic quality to it as if the listener is witnessing something important. Towards the latter half of the song, a flurry of backward vocal samples takes it to a new energy.
The band ends the album with their biggest hit “Young Blood” in its acoustic reimagining. All the catchy melodies of the original are intact even the post-chorus “yeah, yeah, yeahs.” It’s a emotional vocal performance. Hearing a track such as this one in its bare-bones form reveals the true songwriting that lies beneath the original massive production. The Naked and Famous really do a service to the songs by performing them in this style.
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