“I Found Me” by Linda Imperial

In her latest single, titled “I Found Me,” singer/songwriter Linda Imperial relies more on an aggressive approach to her duties behind the mic than she does any over the top frills in the studio to make a statement, and as a result of her efficient efforts, we wind up with one of her leanest and meanest recordings thus far. With a lyrical wit that seems to intertwine with the swaggering nature of the music without much of a nudge from behind the boards, “I Found Me” is an organically charismatic tune, and between its blue-hued melodicism and crisp master mix, it has all the right ingredients to put a smile on your face.  

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This single definitely isn’t lacking on the instrumental substance end, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s no convincing me that the goal here wasn’t to showcase Imperial’s vocal more than anything else. It dominates the spotlight from the moment it first appears in the track to the very instant the music disappears into the silence from which it came ripping some four and a half minutes earlier, but even with its physicality withstanding, I’m reticent to describe it as a particularly – or peculiarly – decadent component of the song in general. 

The lyrics get their luster almost solely from the passion Linda Imperial pours into her performance in “I Found Me,” and no matter what your perspective on the narrative might be, there’s no getting around just how empowering a single this is when she’s laying into the chorus. She holds nothing back in her execution here, and although this isn’t the first occasion on which she’s shown us a lot of brawn with nothing more than her pipes and the sizzle of a smart backing band, it nonetheless feels like a potential turning point for listeners previously unaware of her sound. 

As far as production quality goes, “I Found Me” is a superb offering that stops well short of inviting an intrusiveness into the grander scheme of things simply in the name of creating cross-market accessibility. In an age when hybridity is the overwhelmingly popular route for most every artist in and outside of her peer group, Linda Imperial is actually acting like a purist in her distribution of the groove – and, more importantly, the way she unleashes the lyrics on us with enormous panache. She’s not much for trends here, and frankly, we win because of it. 

Whether you’ve been following her music for a long time or are a newcomer to her body of work overall, I would have to say that Linda Imperial’s “I Found Me” is a pretty fine listen any way you slice it. There are a lot of intriguing new sounds coming from veteran players these days (as tends to be the case amidst any transformative period in the history pop/rock), but if you’re looking for something that is consistently playable and clearly not the product of a plasticized corporate game plan, Imperial and her marvelous melodies are where it’s at right now. 

Mindy McCall