DOWNRIGHT is a driven and eclectic multi-genre collective based between Birmingham, AL & Nashville, TN. I say ‘multi-genre’ because I ran through a handful of their songs, and not one track sounds like another. DOWNRIGHT seem to explore many avenues of music, using both synth and guitar driven motifs. “Break Me Out” is the first single off their upcoming album. Right out of the box, this track is a lot truer to the sound and style of actual 1980’s mainstream music than most of what passes for retro nowadays. If you remember the smash hits of that time, and how most dance-oriented pop, funk and rock relied on sequencers and synths as if their lives depended on it, you’ll thoroughly appreciate and enjoy this track. For the die-hard 80’s fans this is a no-brainer. For anyone who is looking for some great synth-driven pop music that is a cut above the rest, give this a shot.
We live in an age where electronic music is hardwired into popular consciousness. Therefore we are now aware that music which has electrical charges and currents rushing right through it, is not cold or removed from us: it is as human as we are.
“Break Me Out” starts like a brilliant song from a long lost eighties soundtrack , shimmering its sequence of sonorous synth notes, under layers of rhythm stack up, all slot together, in perfect combination. The clicks and thuds of the beat, push the funky basslines urgently forward, as the eloquent vocals, carrying a melodious hook, weaves its way meticulously through the dancing riffs.
This track makes me surge with unconfined joy, as it equates emotion with meaningfulness. Clever lyrics wrapped in music that reaches out to the world, like this stuff does, is not an everyday occurrence. “Break Me Out” continues the winning way of elevating the power of the word via music, as it investigates the yins and yangs of an emotional life.
Compared to what the market currently offers, this song has less rage but more pathos, less despair but more poignancy. It has the rejuvenating power of making something that’s not working, surge back into life.
Expressing passion, explaining pain and being trapped within a moment – “Break Me Out” is an affectionate tribute to the days when music usually involved singers that could connect to the audience. But it’s more than that too. It’s about what music can be, and should be: the articulation of being human, with all its weaknesses and strengths.
Loaded with pulsating keyboards, and a very relentless beat, the song’s processed sounds signal a wholly unexpected sense of purpose and direction for what can be called a retro genre. Odes to the past, genius innovation, and an energy that is truly infectious, work together, to blow anything similar out of the water.
No matter how commercially successful “Break Me Out” turns out to be in an era dominated by four-to-the-floor EDM, DOWNRIGHT have given us a real gift and shown the rest of the electronic music community how to make synth-driven music with depth.
Throughout the recording, the production gives the music a modern, sleek feel. Yet everything still sounds indisputably eighties. There’s absolutely few like DOWNRIGHT making music like this. They have pulled out all of the stops, outdone themselves, and all the competition. Most modern disposable electronic artists need to learn a ton from DOWNRIGHT.
“Break Me Out”, while predominantly a very charged high energy track, does not lack depth and sincerity. And as pop as the music may seem to be, it somehow transcends everything that is superficial about modern pop music. That’s the key to timelessness!
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