Aurum
Reviewed by Duzzy Clayton
‘Always Us’ is a cool new EDM pop band coming out from Durban South Africa made up of Matthew Andre (Guitars), Wanine Zovitzkey (Vocals & Keys), Tanner Kelly-Stack (Vocals & Bass), and Daniel Philogene (Drums)
Having been friends and in and out of bands together, the band has now come together to form ‘Always Us’.
The band is set to release their debut album called Aurum which is made of 8 Pop, and dance tracks that seem to put you on a journey throughout the album. What I like about this band, is being an EDM band. They could easily just have used technology to make the sounds of each song. Although I’m sure technology was used for these recordings, each band member actually plays instruments as mentioned before and it really can be heard on each song, the different instruments being used, which is a nice change compared to your typical EDM band or project, where it is normally a scenario of ‘Buy my album made of technology and no real music made talent’, but this is where ‘Always Us’ stands out from the rest and I think that will also make for a good live show where you will see an actual band on stage, playing their instruments compared to a Laptop making the sounds of what you are hearing
The lyrics to each song are also beautifully written and that is what I meant earlier when I said it kind of takes you on an emotional journey of what the band is singing about. Also adding to the big sound are the double vocals. Wanine and Tanner. Although Wanine does seem to sing lead in most songs, having Tanner’s male backing vocals and sometimes singing lead or rapping in parts, it kind of gives it that Machine Gun Kelly kind of feel which really adds to the awesome sound of the band, having two vocalists in the band also seems to sound like they share the vocals in each song awesomely and compliment each other.
The whole album itself is also very well recorded and professionally done and seeing it is the band’s debut album, it makes me very happy that they have seemed to put a lot of work and effort into the album, and the outcome shows in the quality of the songs.
In my opinion, when it comes to this kind of genre of band, song arrangement is important for the songs, making sure the vocals fit in with the rapping and the music is set to complement not only the vocals, but also the mood of the song, and this can be evident throughout the album, but I feel the last song on the album namely ‘High’ is a strong track and is an indication of how well the song arrangement is and I felt was a great way to end the record
I would suggest listening to the whole album from start to finish and just going on a journey with the band, but the songs that do stick out for me are ‘Waiting Game, Make it Okay,” Other One and Going Under”
Speaking of Going Under, this track also has a cool music video that will be released with the album, which, in my opinion, is a great video and really shows the type of talent and vision the band has.
This isn’t the first time South Africa has produced some quality dance, EDM, and Electronic bands with the likes of Goldfish, GoodLuck, and Pascal and Pearce, I do think ‘Always Us’ has what it takes to not only make it big in South Africa, but also they have the talent and sound to take the world by storm and I defiantly see them playing at festivals around the world sharing the stage with some of the biggest names in the industry.
I would like to congratulate ‘Always Us’ on a great first album and I look forward to what the future holds for this band because the future sure does look bright.
Quotes from the band:
Matthew Andre (Guitars)
“Fast pace, high energy, raw emotion, a fat mix, and a tight production equals Aurum. A glorious album”
“Great fun to work on, even more fun to listen too”
Wanine Zovitzkey (Vocals & Keys)
“This entire project started quite unexpectedly and evolved extremely naturally. Everything just kind of fell into place and I honestly feel like this was meant to be.”
“The amount of fun that we had in creating Aurum and the amount of fun we still have is insane. I cannot believe that I get to do this and be part of such an amazing project working alongside such a wonderful group of people.”
“The songs are all extremely personal for me as the lyrics contain moments of my past. Most of the songs helped me process and get through some extremely difficult times.”
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