Sylas Dean – “American Dreeming” (EP)
LA based singer and songwriter Sylas Dean releases his debut EP, “American Dreeming”, today. Five great and uplifting pop tracks demonstrating the very best in modern synth and electro pop artistry. An east coast native from the small town of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, Sylas packed his car and drove clear across the country with hundreds of songs in his arsenal to reinvent himself as ‘Sylas Dean’. A dance driven sound accompanied with vibrant dreamscape and club kid imagery. His music is about exploring love and heartbreak through the lens of something as glossy and vibrant as hyper pop. “American Dreeming” is about challenging pain through the power of reinvention.
The EP kicks of in glorious colour and sound with the lead single, “Shine”, and the world of Sylas, his voice and temperament are all too clear within a few seconds. This is a cruising anthem, a sublime pop anthem that should play well and gain the massive exposure it thouroughly deserves. Sylas’s understated vocals pervade the awesome synth-bass soundtrack that never slips below perfection. And that setting standard continues with the deep guitar heavy “Wild”. The synths are restricted here as the guitar provides the perfect backdrop to the “summer, summer” as Sylas reaps his “lover, lover”. Addictive vocals and rhythms are they key to this track as Sylas leaves you wanting more, more, more…
Retro synth heaven is reached with “Say My Name”, a deep club/dance anthem that begins in yesterday and travels through the 90’s to the dancefloor of today with Syals’ sexy and hushed vocals. I would love to hear some really heavy dance mixes of this track, it should, and must be a big tune for the future, if heard by the right people and taken all the way… Sylas drives emotion into his vocal for “Two Of Us”, again dropping back to the style of “Wild”, chiefly a guitar-pop number that sounds like an Enrique Iglasias tune of the early 00’s. Watch out Enrique, Sylas is on the warpath with this one! Once again, sexy lyrics enthrone a very private and personal moment between two people(!) All too soon we reach the last track, “Fooling Around”, which Sylas really goes for the acoustic/vocal track with no backing track.
“Fooling Around” is kinda like the morning after the night before tune. After the headiness of his earlier tunes, Sylas chills and takes it down a tempo. Gravelly and raw vocals are the showcase of this smoky number that even uses a haunting sax in the background for added smoulder. Quite brilliant. If this is the quality Syals is able to achieve with his debut opener, what will he do for an encore or a full album? Let’s hope that will follow in time. For now, crank up the volume, open a few windows and get down to Sylas Dean’s own vision of how music SHOULD sound, an American ‘dreeming’ of bigger, brighter things yet to come his way, something that shines so brightly with this collection and one which I am gonna be listening to a great deal this Summer.
Stay in touch with Sylas Dean through his WEBSITE and his FACEBOOK page
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