Listening to The Hills<\/i> is like drinking wine; whether you are a connoisseur or not, just the very act of partaking in the consumption feels classy. This release, which is a continuation of Nicholas Krgovich\u2019s Los Angeles-themed albums (starting with On Sunset <\/i>and its companion disc On Cahuenga<\/i>), follows this Vancouver-based singer\/songwriter\u2019s signature style, consisting of bright sophisti-pop songs with touches of gorgeous orchestral arrangements. The orchestral arrangements are a huge part of this disc, but they are not so big so as to overshadow Krgovich\u2019s intoxicatingly sexy vocals, which is the real gem of his musical persona.<\/p>\n
The Hills <\/i>has an unmistakable aura of sophistication in how carefully it is crafted. The music is gorgeous without being excessive. Take for instance the track \u201cSunset Tower,\u201d where Krgovich\u2019s vocals are accompanied by just the right amount of music \u2013 gently played pianos, finger snapping instead of drums, orchestral music that wafts in and out like a gentle breeze, and an upright bass that thumps with velvety smoothness. <\/p>\n
The best songs on this release find Krgovich taking this jazzy orchestra-laden, ultra refined style into the \u201880s sophisti-pop space. These numbers include \u201cMountain Song,\u201d \u201cThe Place Goes Quiet,\u201d \u201cLookout Point,\u201d and \u201cOut Of Work Jazz Singer,\u201d which have a distinct sophisti-pop vibe, but are not weighed down by the \u201880s sound. Instead, the music on these cuts is fresh and very contemporary, sounding as if the sophisti-pop movement got a makeover for a new generation of listeners.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Krgovich takes a more experimental approach to his music on the track \u201cWritten In The Wind,\u201d which sounds like the hangover after the grand party thrown by the aforementioned numbers; it is most certainly unimpressive compared to the rest of the disc. Krgovich sounds dazed, slurring the words rather than singing them while a guitar and an upright bass play listlessly in a drunken haze as the backdrop.<\/p>\n
There is a portion of this album that consists of musical interludes, which are in fact short instrumental reprise versions of tracks from On Sunset<\/i>. While it is cool that these cuts \u2013 \u201cBacklot Detail,\u201d \u201cRock\u2019s Detail,\u201d \u201cPCH Detail,\u201d and \u201cMoon\u2019s Detail\u201d \u2013 tie The Hills<\/i> with the tracks \u201cThe Backlot,\u201d \u201cRock\u2019s Dream,\u201d \u201cAlong The PCH On Oscar Night,\u201d and \u201cMoon\u2019s Soft Glow\u201d from On Sunset<\/i>, they don\u2019t do much with respect to the rest of the numbers on The Hills <\/i>itself. Instead of flowing into other songs or blending in more gracefully, these tracks act merely as purposeless breaks, disrupting the album\u2019s flow.<\/p>\n
The Hills<\/i> is certainly not the best that an enormously talented musician like Nicholas Krgovich could possibly come up with. However, it will certainly do more than an adequate job in getting more fans interested in him as an artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":32818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9866],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44590","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nicholas-krgovich","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44590"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}