Angelo David dispenses in his latest single “This Place”

URL: http://www.angelodavidmusic.com/

Bulging synths and haunting grooves prove to be no match for the magnetic drawl that Angelo David dispenses in his latest single, “This Place,” which is burning up the underground right now at a frighteningly swift pace. At just 16 years old, David has already accomplished a couple of pretty huge benchmarks of modern pop music; he’s brought down the house at the Hard Rock to an extraordinarily receptive crowd and created a music video that trended inside of the top five most viewed-worldwide on YouTube. “This Place” sees the young phenom continuing to expand on his sophisticated style of attack, which fuses traditional melodic pop with a searing, rigid ambience that is inventive and has little in common with the output of his peers in the best way possible.

This single puts all of the emphasis squarely on Angelo David’s dynamic vocal range, which is the star of the show from the moment he starts to serenade us. He has an amazing ability to bond his voice to virtually any rhythm this song throws his way, and from a compositional standpoint “This Place” is hardly child’s play. The grooves are bass-heavy but fall short of drowning us in blistering feedback. David wanders through the lyrics with a sense of wonderment that is earnest and humble, yet at the same time he sounds controlled and poised, like he knows exactly what he’s doing and how he wants to impart these emotional confessions to us. The music never overshadows the prose, which isn’t all that common in this strain of pop.

Instrumentally, “This Place” is actually a really understated piece. The pulsating percussion remains in the background throughout the course of the track, while the cascading synth-generated melody that captures our attention at the start swells and retreats consistently and is never quite able to challenge the grandeur of the vocal. Everything, and I mean everything in this song centers around David’s ultra-slick singing, which is pronounced in both the mix and the general arrangement of the track. The skillset that this guy has is undeniably strong, and considering his young age he’s got the potential to do just about anything that he wants with it. His soft timbre tells me he’d be best to stick with this accessible realm of pop until he fully develops his craft; he’s seriously got something really special here.

Pop fans of all ages rejoice – “This Place” is a window into the heart of one of music’s most exciting new talents, and what it tells us about his future in this game is almost as wowing as its actual content is. Angelo David is emerging as one of the hottest up and comers to watch in 2019, and with the release of this latest single he proves that he’s got a lot of dimensions in his persona still to share with us. In addition to his sleeper hit “Post,” “This Place” has got enough sizzle to thrill even the harshest critics of contemporary western pop music.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/0QohKp1MWEU92RCEkRZ2YW

Michael Rand