Based out of Cambridge, England, Mark Shepherd brings a brand of acoustic rock-sounding, folk-themed music that, in his words, aims to explore the more ‘stygian’ things to life. I would describe his sound as a mix of storytelling ballad-style music, with deep, though-provoking lyrics. He here presents his latest project, “World On Fire”, where he talks about serious themes, all while weaving stories out of metaphors. Keep reading to know what I mean.
The song is very melodically driven, with a consistent motif that keeps evolving as the seconds go by. This makes the song the kind of earworm you’ll find yourself singing inadvertently– in the best way possible. This is complimented further by Shepherd’s distinctive, power-laden baritone vocals that immediately resonated with me the way Rag N’ Bone Man sounded on “Human”. This lays a solid foundation for all the good things that further grow around the song as it progresses.
The production is clean, minimal– making tasteful use of the instruments that are the most pertinent to the genre in discussion. The acoustic guitar lends itself very prominently here, forming the rhythmical and chord basis for this track. As a fan of the guitar myself, I could not stop myself from going in and looking at the kind of attention of detail going on in every aspect of the production, and at the end of my listening period, I will say I walked away a happy man.
The energy is very well balanced throughout the song, the song picks up and lets off the gas exactly where feels appropriate– and in my opinion, it is the number one thing that people as songwriters tend to miss the mark on; here, I’m happy to report that that is far from the case. The mix is tight, spacious, and an overall A+ job, nothing to gnaw at here.
All in all, “World On Fire” made for an excellent listen, and it is my pleasure to be able to tell you guys what I thought of the song. Check out the song here:
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Discovered via http://musosoup.com
