A harmony that knows not of the earthly boundaries between vocal cords and the synths guiding a bassline soars passionately towards the heavens with a stampede of drums and melodic expression not far behind it. The beat thrashes us over and over with an unadulterated swing that won’t stop until we’re crushed under the weight of its sway. The synth crassly cuts to the front and mellows the rhythm, forcefully kneading the tempo into something much more relaxed and unurgent. Xavier Toscano confidently steps up to the mic and starts to sing with an emotionality that seems to transcend the limits of his words altogether. Empowered by the world around him, Toscano presses on and into the flash point of the firestorm; he refuses to be stopped here, and his song “Keeps It Tight” is his resistance.
The rhythm and its rambunctious energy lent Xavier Toscano a hand in composing “Keeps It Tight,” but it’s Toscano himself who is responsible for making its simply crafted melody into the full-blown symphony of creative color that we hear it as in this single. The structure of this song isn’t a traditional one, but it features a litany of textures that we can trace directly back to the pioneers of pop who paved the way for modern club music. Our man recoils from the flare of the chorus and rejects any temptation to overindulge in the harmony. His self-control is amazing and typically more common in artists twice his age, but as we all know by now, this guy has the artistic maturity of a man wise beyond his years.
Like a seasoned veteran, he slips in and out of the growing melodies in this song, not to hide from the immense pressure growing between the beat and the bass but to make sure that he isn’t overshadowing the sublimely tailored arrangement. Toscano’s selflessness in “Keeps It Tight” is reflected in the message of its lyrics, which encourages us to stop throwing fuel on an out-of-control blaze and start working on actually putting it out. His verses never get overstated to the point of alienating specific elements in the instrumentation, but we know exactly what he’s trying to get across to us – he wants to be at the center of this mix, but he isn’t about to hog the spotlight from the underlying indulgence here.
As Toscano unleashes a powerhouse vocal midway through the song, before allowing the backing band to dive headfirst into a fleeting finale, his voice becomes embedded in the melody and drives us into the heat of the groove. We ebb and flow with the tempo and come out on the other side of the track feeling empowered by the verses that have been sung to us, now as potently tied to the beat as any of the melodic elements here could be. Xavier Toscano took a lot of stylistic chances with this song, from the design of the bridge to the extended climax that it was built to support, but from my vantage point, he hits every creative mark looming over this concept without ever flinching.
Mindy McCall
