When it comes to beautiful-sounding music, Nosound has definitely got that nailed – and their fifth album Scintilla is testament to that.
Scintilla is a stunning blend of sounds and ideas that come together to create a beautiful collection of songs, and it’s a spine-tinglingly good listen from start to finish. A particularly good element of the album is the way that the introductory track Short Story works well at building the album up – it starts off ever so quietly, and slowly increases in volume and texture as the vocals and additional instruments join in – and then the scene is officially set as the album progresses into the first ‘full’ song of the release, Last Lunch.
There’s so many great moments to be found on Scintilla, from the smooth vocal performance to the gentle cello lines and relaxed guitars, with sixth track Emily perhaps being the best example of this. The cello really gets its time to shine in this track, with a stunning solo, and the acoustic guitars (and indeed, other instruments!) support it well whilst the vocals sit rather dreamily atop.
It’s a fairly chilled piece as a whole, and a very refreshing listen. It also admittedly feels like an album that could be billed as a “soundtrack to the summer” – it’s just a pity that the season is now coming to a close!
9/10
