He recently won the “breakthrough artist of 2017” vote of YleX, the Finnish equivalent of BBC. In addition to getting recognized as a great songwriter, he is getting well known for not giving interviews, or liking those long pitches and biographies.
Publicity team name: Jere from Little Galaxy Management
Artist: SNØ
Year: 2017
Genre: electro-pop, R-n-B, Urban
Artist Bio: He recently won the “breakthrough artist of 2017” vote of YleX, the Finnish equivalent of BBC. In addition to getting recognized as a great songwriter, he is getting well known for not giving interviews, or liking those long pitches and biographies.
Album Title: Prologue
Review:
Some artists emerge in a splash of color and fanfare while others choose to cling to the shadows, allowing their work to speak for them. Such is the case for songwriter SNØ out of Helsinki, Finland. Submitted by Jere from Little Galaxy Management, comes the singer/songwriter SNØ. Debuting his first single track back in September 2016, SNØ’s sound is a mix of R-n-B and electro-pop. Relying primarily on vocals and synth “Sunrise” has a nice, if not slightly too slow beat, that makes it more of an easy listening than club jam.
Though delivered with beautiful pitch and tone from a voice more enthusiastic than seductive, the lyrics fail to tell a real story, instead of falling into the trap of the simply expressing longing over and over again without branching out to explore other topics. The sound is not quite that slow, romantic, wrap your arms around your partner and sway song, nor does it have the storytelling to elevate it that standard. To me, this debut track lacked the type of energy found in fellow electro-pop composers Nicky Romero or Jupiter Rising, and instead, fell a bit flat by the end.
SNØ’s “Day by Day,” suffers from the same low energy synth as “Sunrise.” Coupled with lyrics delivered in a bit more of an urban style than his debut track, SNØ seemed to be seeking an edgier sound, but as a whole, the EP’s tracks were far too similar. The tone set by the synth as well as the beats are stagnant and monotone, lacking in both range and diversity. Coupled with a voice that never really travels up and down the scales, the EP came off as a bit one-note to me. I found myself wishing he’d cranked the tempo way up at least once and shown some kind of depth of emotion in his delivery of the lyrics.
Like an old 45 being played at 33 1/2 speed, SNØ’s 4 track EP “Prologue,” which debuted on January 19th, 2017, kind of drags along between opening song “December” through the final track, “Over.” Including tracks “Day to Day” and “Echo,” the EP does have one major thing going for it, and that is the soothing, melodic voice of the singer, SNØ.
“Voted breakthrough artist of 2017” by Ylex, the Finnish equivalent of the BBC, SNØ is a rather elusive musician who prefers to remain anonymous, save for his sound. While on their own, each song on their EP has the potential to stand on its own merits, as a compilation, the lack of range becomes almost overwhelmingly noticeable.
With lyrics like “I can’t believe what I told you, let you in on the feelings I showed you, worst feeling when you told me its over, its over, its over,” in “Over,” and “Spend my cash, spend my cash, I’ll spend it on you, baby, ‘cause I know this won’t last. Spend it all, spend it all, I’ll spend it ‘til I’m broke, ‘til the end, ‘til you’re gone.” the EP starts to sound a lot like a breakup album. SNØ delivers the angst, that’s for certain, unfortunately, there is little substance to the feels to make them truly compelling.
Rating Tag: Slow, Melodic, angsty
Rating by Specific Track
December: 2
Day by Day:2
Solo:2
Over: 2
Overall Album (0 to 5): 2
Artist on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/snomusic-official/sets/prologue
Artists debut single: http://whycauseican.com/2016/09/09/finland-artist-sno-sunrise/
