Kevin Grace is a solo artist from Deptford, New Jersey. He’s been in the South Jersey music scene for years playing with various local bands and during that time, he played in venues such as Philly’s Trocadero, as well as Asbury Park’s Stone Pony. In 2020, after a nine-year hiatus from music, Grace released Paradox,his first serious push at a solo career. This EP was mixed and recorded by Grace using GarageBand and then mastered using a cloud-based mastering platform called Promaster made by Aftermaster, Inc. Paradox is a collection of alternative and post-punk “maelstrom” which sounds can be best compared to earlier work by The Killers or The Strokes. Grace would begin his recording process by finding the right melody for each track, which involved exploring a specific aspect of his psyche. Once that was down, it was just “a matter of feeling out what it is the melodies were saying lyrically.” After finishing the lyrics, all the instruments were recorded with guitar and voice being last.
The opener bears the same name as the EP, and it features a synth pop rhythm, complete with layered synths and a very ‘80s sounding drum machine. The loud distorted guitars over the synth and overdubbed vocals makes for a unique sound. There is some definite Killers influence here but also some post-punk underpinnings – Kraftwerk, Joy Division and Gary Numan come to mind. “Fireball” mixes in lower bass keys on the synth with different sounding keys. If you pay attention to Grace’s voice here, he’s got a pretty sweet tone and vibrato. I would even say sometimes it reminded me of the late Layne Staley. Even though Grace didn’t write his music in the “traditional love ballad template” kind-of-way, that’s pretty much what the song is about – being in love, oh yeah, and buying a Corgi. Next up is “Masquerade” which lays it down heavy with the synths, alongside some dry sounding electronic drums. I thought Grace’s guitar work was quite good on this one, too. “World on Fire” has an ‘80s new wave synth appeal to it – perhaps it was the catchy melody Grace used or the lighter pop song structure or the song’s intro – in any case, it had a definite early ‘80s vibe to it. He really belts the lyrics out as well, both in volume and passion and I really liked his guitar work on this one a lot, too. The last tune is “Trauma” and it starts off sounding, well, traumatic. There is a more tense and dark sound mixed within and his guitar solo is pretty darn good, too. Overall, Paradox has a very unique mix of electronic drums, synth styles and textures, fuzzy distorted guitars and a singer who put a lot of heart into his work.
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