Alt-pop artist Annika Rose has just released the first single off of her upcoming EP READ ALL ABOUT IT. Channeling the sounds of Half Alive and Stella Lefty, the single “CALL ME.” gives an introduction into the darker alt-pop sound that Annika Rose is quickly becoming known for.
Written after the end of a long-term relationship, Rose is conflicted between her newfound independence and her desire for comfort. This indecisiveness is clear from the outset when the songwriter asks her listener “am I doing this right?”. The imagery in “CALL ME.” is also well done, with the images of “concrete” and “Friday at home” emulating both the big city and the loneliness that comes with it.
In the chorus, Rose uses alliteration to show her stream of consciousness. The repetition of “s” sounds in the line “I shiver from the silence of the space” gives a sense of spiraling out. We see internal rhyming used in the second verse to a similar effect with lines such as “stirring, spinning, turning inside out” and “is it weakness or an appetite a paradox.”
Rose’s clever writing strikes a balance between ear-candy hooks and in-depth imagery that shows her prowess in pop music.
Produced by Austin Ward and J Tyler Johnson,the indie-pop sound of “CALL ME.” is unsurprisingly tight with a focus on how effects and plugins can create space. With a strong piano grounding the song, the rest of the instrumentation is able to sit in a looser and filtered soundscape. Between guitars with heavy flangers and reverb, and side-chained reverb giving a subtle beat before the drums even come in, the production is cinematic and matches Rose’s darker tonality.
“CALL ME.” by Annika Rose is set to feature on the artist’s EP READ ALL ABOUT IT, out later this year.
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