Kimberlye Gold Releases New EP

From the clandestine swing of “Nowhere to Go But Gone” to the lurching yet majestic melody that supports “Who We Are Now,” there’s a sense of unfiltered emotionality that accompanies every moment you’re going to come in contact with in the new record Soliloquy from Kimberlye Gold. Unlike a lot of the other singer/songwriter releases I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing in the last year, Gold’s latest record isn’t one that utilizes insularity as an aesthetical cornerstone.

On the contrary, there’s a rather aggressive outgoingness that I get from these lyrics that makes me feel as though this player is looking to reach out to her audience in a way she would have never dreamed of before. She’s breaking out of her shell and shunning so much of the cold chaotic theme that has become prevalent in even the more balladic hits to come from her genre in recent years, and best of all, we find her sound untethered to any political, social or other cultural movement critics might just as put under the legitimacy microscope. 

Soliloquy goes beyond the collective and focuses on the individual that is who this singer/songwriter has always been away from the microphone, and in using harmony to communicate emotions rather than old-fashioned verse/hook interplay alone, Gold makes it clear she’s not rolling with amateur indie artists at this point in her life.

There’s a natural feel to every track here, starting with the first song in the EP – “A Place in Your Heart.” I’ve never understood why more pastoral players in modern times don’t embrace the easy-going aspect of storytelling as opposed to conceptualizing it as a means of survival often for no reason other than to fit in with someone else’s artistic design. The instrumental play in “How Can I Be Sure” and “The Right Kind of No” defines everything from the tone to the tempo of the music, but someone doesn’t steal any of the efficiently-proportioned thunder away from Gold’s lead vocal. The overall production quality should be enough to leave her peers and music nerds around the underground green with envy, and even more noteworthy, I don’t credit its polish for any of the charm this material has. That part of Soliloquy is organic through and through, and you can tell as much in even a casual listening session spent with this tracklist.  

It’s easy to be picky about singer/songwriters these days, considering all of the talent out there on the international level right now, and if you’re as discriminating as I am, Kimberlye Gold’s sound might be something you’re going to be interested in finding out about via Soliloquy this month. If this is her standard moving forward, I don’t see why her latest EP won’t be the last of her works to be released in a purely independent format – after all, with a talent as unique as hers, I think mainstream appeal is more a question of attaining the proper exposure than it is cultivating the right skill set.  

Mindy McCall