Taste Test, Edition #22: Royal Teeth, Azu Yeché, Trevor Stott & more

Welcome to Taste Test, a review wrangling of SubmitHub-only gemstones.

“Show You What I Can Do” by Royal Teeth featuring Tunde Olaniran

Synths and drums scrape against each other, leaving crusty layers on the eardrums. The sound waves thicken like batter, and you’re left wading chest-deep in a troubling, visceral mixture. “Show You What I Can Do” witnesses indie-rock band Royal Teeth breaking the skin as a way to display their self-worth, opting out of hiding behind faux-sentimentalism and social feeds and boasting their very real, tangible states. “You got the world right in front of you” rings out as an alarm, jarring the marginalized awake from a deep slumber and igniting within them a ferocious hunger to survive at all costs. Rapper Tunde Olaniran delivers a 1-2 sucker punch with a torrid, lip-smacking breakdown; he’s not to be messed with and you’ll be sorry, indeed.

“Sunrise” by Azu Yeché

There’s something hypnotic about Azu Yeché’s slow-building timbre, filtered through rhythmic, tribal percussion and guitars that snap right in the ears. His voices buzzes like a swarm of bees on “Sunrise,” which seeks to cleanse the past year of his life on a global scale and upend so much destruction. “It’s been a long, crazy year, and I’ve seen all the changing,” he sings before howling right up into his falsetto. The performance runs both hot and cold, engaging the emotions until they reach a fevered pitch ⏤ it is somehow soothing, even though there’s an air of unease trembling just below the surface. “From the dark of the night until the sunrise, you’ll be right here in my arms,” sings Yeché, wrapping the listener in a tender embrace.

“Seduce” by Farid Audee

Farid Audee beacons across time and space, his voice feeling detached but right in your ear. Guitars crest into tidal waves, a gale force wind stirring overhead, and even as his angelic voice haunts the mind, his fingertips caress you into a state of bliss. “Seduce,” a sample of the 21-year-old’s forthcoming new album, entices your limbs and draws upon new-wave pop, harder-biting rock music and chewy bubble-gum. Left with such weighty devices, wrapping his voice like barbed-wire around the melody, slinky and sticky, Audee defies genre tropes for a mix that’s brash, provocative and pricks the taste buds. “I usually don’t stray away from my own ways / But with you It’s something else,” he teases, a smirk curling his lips.

“Comfort” by Nathan Grey

Grains of sand fall as fractured glass through the air and slice open old wounds. But Nathan Grey emerges as an agent for healing and instructs the listener on how to extricate bad habits and people for a truly transformational reprieve. “Comfort,” which throbs as an anxiety-riddled heart, separates the thorny branches of infatuation and toxicity, draining all the poison and allowing the soul to finally be replenished. “Well our demons danced together / But our souls couldn’t keep time forever,” sings Grey, reconfiguring his pain from a relationship turned sour into a warrior battlecry. “I’ve gotta walk away from you,” he reaffirms his dignity with a simple, direct proclamation.

“Green” by Ross Jenkins

The title cut to his new EP, “Green” flutters in tight-knit time but cascades through the seasons of Ross Jenkins’ life. Originally from Vancouver, the folk tunesmith paddles through the waters with a resilient glow, knowing full and well that he must change with the color of the leaves if he has any hope of survival. Guitar flecks and collects as gold dust at the bottom of a stream, and Jenkins’ voice ebbs and flows as a crystal mountain stream likes to do. “You can’t be who you’ve always been,” he advises not only the listener but himself. But his phrasing is light, rather than succumbing to such a challenge. “I’ve done my thinking / And find my voice these days / Too lonely to get onstage,” he later observes.

“Carry My Soul” by Trevor Stott

The embankment lies as emerald dazzling in the sunlight, and the river tosses stray twigs to and fro in the undercurrent. A native of St. George, Utah, folk singer-songwriter Trevor Stott allows his own body and soul to be swept away on the glistening ripples, finally discarding the things he can not change. “Flowers falling light upon the heavy stones / How many tears shed in joy and lost in sorrow / Leave those gardens for a world of their own,” he sings on “Carry My Soul,” the opener to his new gloriously baptism-like album Halfway in the Light. Joyous tears cleanse his cheek bones, and his skin glows red. It’s a cathartic release marking a moment of enlightenment, and his new form permits him even more time to truly live in the moment, rather than worry marring his ability to breath.

“Sad Songs” by kwassa

It’s only human nature to want to feeling something, anything. Scott Verrill, known onstage as kwassa, lights up the evening sky with “Sad Songs,” a dichotomy of struggling into adulthood and a sparkling potion of drums, synths and vocal distortion. He numbs the sting of uncertainty with a banging groove, tearing away the outer shell and freeing the demons inside from completely destroying the host. “We’re just in the jungle, trying to see the stars out / Listening to sad songs, trying to get the feels out,” he sings, evoking utter euphoria that can only be achieved on the dance floor at 3am.

“Be Yourself” by Flaming Fenix

Markus Unholzer’s voice burns through every single layer of the galaxy. Fronting Ingolstadt-born band Flaming Fenix, which marries classic ’80s arena-rock with the grittier, early ’90s heart-rending onslaught, Unholzer upends expectation with “Be Yourself,” a deep cut on their 2018 late-release, The Joker. In processing their own faults, the band interchanges pain and hollowness for the beauty that sprouts when you learn to accept every tattered, rugged edge of self-worth. “Shining bright through the night / I changed my mind,” he yowls in a thick accent, gazing up to the heavens.

“Can’t Stop Us” by Lévie

Of Brazilian heritage, shape-shifter Lévie lets the music speaker louder than simple words could ever do. It’s been nearly two years since his last major pop release, but with “Can’t Stop Us,” a triumphant kiss-off in the aftermath of heartache and emotional scarring, he flexes rave-beats over acoustic guitar, quaking as his voice sears the grooves into place. “Caught in my feels again / You know they told me to get over it,” he opens up right from the outset, exposing a raw nerve and vulnerability. Through the three minute runtime, he takes the listener on his emotional journey, from the initial impact to fear to anger to redemption to hope. And it’s a wonderfully-intoxicating thrillscape.

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