While he isn’t pushing himself quite as hard as he’s capable of, there’s undeniably a lot of pent-up energy behind Gabriele Saro’s lead vocal in the new single “I Don’t Mind” this March, and it’s coming undone in all the right places. Catharsis is a priority for Saro in this performance and were it not I don’t think we would have as structured a climb towards the climax here as we do. Not unlike the other single this artist has out at the moment, “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” tension is a big element of expression that he doesn’t mind exploiting to the fullest extent when applicable, but if you think this is the same strain of surreal pop coming to fruition out west this season, you’re in for one heck of a surprise.
The way this material was constructed suggests that Saro isn’t entirely comfortable with the conventionalities of pop; there’s a desire to break out of the model, to define his persona through far more than lyrics and a hook alone, and it can be traced to the heady rock influence in the foundations of both “Can’t Fight the Feeling” and “I Don’t Mind” alike. This is a guy who wants us to know how versatile a player he can be in the right circumstances, and although there’s something to be said about humility in pop/rock today, the swagger that this artist has from one end of these tracks to the other is actually a lot more inviting than it is repellent to the casual listener.
Saro’s singing in “Can’t Fight the Feeling” feels like the more embracive of the two performances we have to analyze here, but I wouldn’t say that he’s more emotional with his statements in this piece compared to what he’s saying in “I Don’t Mind.” Truth be told, I find this artist to be the kind of songwriter who can’t help but put a chunk of his own heart, his own story if you will, into the music he produces and performs, and in this sense his work is on par with some of the more iconic voices in the history of the pop genre. He’s still able to sharpen a few corners, but this is overall one of the more complete indie artist profiles I’ve come across in a long time.
There’s a lot of buzz around the American underground at the moment, but there hasn’t been nearly as much attention afforded to the international pop circuit as it’s being cultivated under the watchful eyes of artists like Gabriele Saro right now. Saro could care less about the regional scene politics that once kept so many different diverse facets of pop from melding together in perfect cohesion, and his desire to experiment with his parameters is hard to ignore in any portion of “I Don’t Mind” and “Can’t Fight the Feeling.” He has a lot more work to do in developing this sound into everything it can be, but I like what these two singles are saying about his future.
Chadwick Easton
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