Rachel DeeLynn’s “Can You Hear Me Now?” is unabashedly personal and irrepressible modern hard rock. The Nashville-based Berklee College of Music graduate has enjoyed a recent single, “The Dark”, achieving Grammy consideration and is nearing her debut EP’s release. She’s likewise logged several well-received live performances that have set the groundwork for the aforementioned collection. She’s appeared in venues as far-flung as Nashville, Boston, Austin, and even Ballymurn, Ireland, and greeted with a near-rapturous response at each stop.
WEBSITE: https://www.racheldeelynn.com/
DeeLynn and her cohorts skillfully tailor “Can You Hear Me Now?” for live performance. There are minimal post-production effects, and sacrificing them for concert is unlikely to have a noticeably negative impact. They are welcome atmospheric touches, such as the light production wizardry the production applies to her vocals, but nothing more. Virtually everything else about “Can You Hear Me Now?” seamlessly transfers to a live environment.
DeeLynn’s singing is naturally the single’s lynchpin. She has a commanding aura, insistent, and insolent, and inhabits an impressive emotional range. Even a cursory listen makes it clear that the song’s lyrics are particularly close to the bone for DeeLynn. She’s alternatingly accusatory, hectoring, and even haughty. It’s equally clear that she’s deriving a great deal of relish from the song’s emotional bent, and it’s likely a purifying experience for her.
It has great potential to get an audience to sing along. However, those anthemic qualities are never conventional. DeeLynn filters her rock influences through an alternative prism, and a strong contemporary influence permeates the track’s rhythms. Familiar elements abound. The guitars riff, enhance the rhythm, and the bass provide a punchy and sternum-rattling undertow. DeeLynn transmutes these trademark rock features through her consciousness with idiosyncratic results. There are guitar players that seasoned listeners can name in three notes. There are singers with indelible voices. DeeLynn will join the ranks of such identifiable stylists in a short time.
Don’t mistake that for flash over substance. The naked conversational style of her lyrics reveals a fierce intelligence that brokers little compromise. It oddly accentuates her sensitivity. It is only in the aftermath of caring for someone deeply that pulling the rug out from under us inspires such vitriol and contempt. The short, declarative lines are perfect for the arrangement, and DeeLynn delivers them masterfully.
It’s quite exciting to consider where she’ll go from here.
We haven’t been exposed to much from her songwriting talents, Yet. The early returns indicate she’s a formidable talent with a penchant for dramatic vocals and biting lyrical content. Extensive musical training and graduating from the prestigious Berklee College of Music hints that she has many more tricks up her sleeve. There’s a clear commercial slant to the songwriting and presentation. It’s never crass, and no sensible listener will begrudge her aspirations. She wants success, and she’ll get it – on her terms.
It’ll make for a compelling journey, and countless compelling listens. This is a major league talent at the beginning of their voyage in the spotlight, and we can be confident that her songs will provide an account of every twist and turn ahead.
Chadwick Easton