It’s not often that a release that wouldn’t sound out of place being played in a club on a Saturday night that isn’t a rock club finds its way onto the pages of Already Heard. But that’s exactly what we’ve got in the form of ‘Leave Your Love’. The classy, synth-pop soul fest that is the long awaited debut solo EP from Issues frontman Tyler Carter.
The main thing you would expect from a Tyler Carter solo effort would be a masterclass in smooth soul filled vocals, and on that front the EP delivers in spades. Every track brims with layers of gorgeously nailed vocal tracks that show what an exceptional singer Carter is. And with the fairly traditional R&B synth dominated soundscape, Carter has plenty of room to flex his skills with some really impressive, range stretching vocal runs.
Given his musical history it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect Carter to include a genre hopping blend of influences and sounds from his career, but that’s one area in which ‘Leave Your Love’ falls a little flat. Musically there is very little to distinguish Carter’s work from any of the plethora of other R&B electro pop crooners out there. Indeed opener ‘Sophisticated’ could come from any one of Drake, Timberlake et al’s interchangeable output.
Things get a little better on the title track, an insistent electronic beat driving the track forwards while the added passion and feeling in Carter’s vocal, noticeably missing from the first track, couple with dark and brooding lyrics bring proceedings more in line with the former Woe Is Me Man’s usual output.
Probably the standout track on the EP is first single ‘Georgia’ a sweeping soulful electro pop ballad that features the release’s strongest vocal performance and its most emotionally resonant lyrics that tries to untangle an anguished situation of love and addiction.
‘So Slow’ is a downbeat mid-tempo number that sees Carter push the top end of his vocal range to its limit and experiment with a variety of vocal effects, the track builds nicely from a slow understated syncopated drums and a looping synth riff to multiple vocal tracks playing off each other at its crescendo.
‘Tears On The Runway Pt 1’ provides the EP’s most diverse and interesting track with synths, brass riffs, keys and various percussive elements swirling around Carter and Nylo exchanging exquisite vocal performances on a track that really should get the chance to be a single.
‘Leave Your Love’ delivers on it’s promise of brilliant vocals and provides a pleasant enough, chilled out listen. However it often feels a little one dimensional and too often strays into cookie cutter, predictable R&B territory. That said the production never falls anywhere less than sublime, and realistically, this EP was only ever going to be about that voice. And for that most of its faults can be, if not forgiven, easily enough tolerated.
3/5
’Leave Your Love’ by Tyler Carter is out on NOW on Velocity/ Rise Records.
Tyler Carter links:Website|Twitter
Words by Dane Wright (@MrDaneWright
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