A dynamic EP with a varied range of styles and influences.
Steve Hillier has recently released a new EP titled Walking in New Orleans. This is a melodic pop-rock release that stands out as a celebration of this beautiful city, its colors, its people, and its legendary connection to the American music culture in general. Musically, the EP showcases Steve’s ability to tell a story through sound, not only using his vivid lyrics and relatable storytelling, but also allowing sound to be a vital component of his ability to connect with the audience and share something deeper through combining instruments and words in a very impactful way.
The first song, the title track, is an instrumental, and a perfect mood-setter. One of the first things you’ll notice is the beautiful sound of the electric guitars. Overdriven, yet melodic and well-defined, where every note has its space. There’s also room for some blistering guitar leads, showcasing Steve’s ability to let the guitar speak. At the same time, the guitars never overpower the rest of the music. Instead, they enhance the song and serve it completely, allowing all instruments to stand out equally. Fans of artists as diverse as Keith Urban, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, or Wilco should definitely check this out.
In addition to the title track, this EP features five other songs, making for a total of six excellent tracks, each showcasing a different side to Steve’s artistry and storytelling.
The second track, Every Night, is just as compelling, offering a melodic take on the sound of this EP and showcasing the broad variety of influences and creativity, making the sound extremely exciting and dynamic.
The song Love for the Individual Passerby is colorful and vibrant, and it is a perfect rendition of what it feels like to walk around New Orleans, people-watching, and marveling at the incredibly eclectic variety of people that simply enjoy themselves and live their lives in this city. It is a beautiful and iconic town, and song by song, this EP serves as an amazing tribute to it and its lifestyle.
The following track, Things On My Mind (Ocean), is a stunning and emotional piano ballad. This song has a laid-back tempo and it enables Steve to showcase his full vocal range. He has a very honest and organic vocal style, which really highlights and enhances the emotion behind his delivery and makes the song feel all the more easy to relate to for an audience. While this song does a great job at retaining the artist’s personality, it will definitely appeal to fans of rock ballad masters like Billy Joel, Elton John, or Bryan Adams, among others.
The next song, Everybody Knows (I Love You), is a mid-tempo rocker with some jazz influences, especially when it comes to the beautiful saxophone leads implemented perfectly in the arrangement and serving as yet another nod to the beautiful city of New Orleans and its musical heritage. This song almost feels like a nod to some of David Bowie’s best works, and it has a classic 70s vibe while still retaining a crisp contemporary production aesthetic, with a lot of clarity.
Last but not least, there’s room for a Revisited version of the title track, which means the EP ends where it began — a full circle that reinforces its strong connection to New Orleans, making the track really stand out and adding more weight to the overall concept that makes this EP so special. This instrumental differs from the first version especially because of the amazingly expressive Hammond organ (played by Abel Boquera).
In conclusion, you really can’t go wrong here. Each instrument is well-balanced in the mix, allowing the arrangements to breathe naturally. The production avoids unnecessary polish, favoring authenticity and warmth, which enhances the storytelling and highlights the raw talent behind the music. This EP is sonically as well as emotionally quite powerful. It stands out as a well-produced, and extremely dynamic collection of songs, which shows that you can achieve a modern tone without necessarily having to overproduce and overpolish everything. It’s becoming increasingly harder to find records that sound contemporary, but sport an “old soul” for lack of a better definition – However, this definitely seems to be the case here! On the EP, there’s a strong focus on highlighting the natural talent of the musicians involved, as well as giving the audience a more real, more authentic and overall emotional experience of the music itself and the concepts behind it.
Find out more and connect with the artist:
https://linktr.ee/stevehillier
written by Andrea Caccese