Single Review: Charlene Soraia – ‘I’ll Be There’
1 min read
British singer-songwriter Charlene Soraia’s synaesthesia allows how to see sound as colours. The blending of senses is particularly palpable on I’ll Be There, the lead single off her upcoming second LP Love Is The Law.
Co-written and produced by Caged collaborator Jim Eliot, the track ropes listeners in with its suspenseful, pulsing synth bass and eerie echoes on Soraia’s slightly overdriven, trembling but pure purr. She balances conviction with vulnerability as she implores her audience to depend on her, by murmuring ‘just call…just call on me’.
Barely forty seconds in comes a smile-inducing, bright chorus that wraps listeners in pink fairy floss. All seems right in the world as Soraia promises that she’ll be around no matter what. A modern, sugary and psychedelic version of Don’t Give Up (which is the bridge’s message) if you will, as she adds inflections on the hooks that almost don’t sound humanly possible. It would have sounded better with harmonies than two vocals just an octave apart, but this chorus is too well constructed not to ‘fall in love too hard’ with.
The computerised yet organic production featuring handclaps, crisp drum machines and sympathetic synths allows the track to paint a gloriously warm picture that is bound to lift listeners’ moods.
Charlene Soraia’s latest single is therefore an engaging triumph of rich yet intimate mid-tempo synth-pop.
