Sofia Verbilla is barely out of her teens, but the music she’s creating under the Harmony Woods moniker shows the promise of an emerging talent yet to be fully explored. Make Yourself At Home is her second LP, and displays an ear for hooks that propel her narratives and complement her lyrical dexterity. All in all, an excellent starting point to get acquainted with Harmony Woods' music.
As a complete piece of work, it is flawed, and its cracks primarily curl outward from arrangements that tend towards the safe and the familiar. There's nothing wrong with the familiar, but when the framework of the songs is as solid as they are from a storytelling perspective, your brain kind of yearns for a little more musical tension. In other words, it feels like the band she's brought together to capture her vision does their job with precision, but don't fully do her songs justice. All that said, we are talking about a young, ambitious talent, so I'm deeply curious to see where Verbilla goes from here.
"The City's Our Song" is my favorite track from Make Yourself At Home, and hints at the grandeur Verbilla is capable of. At its core it's a brief reflection on youth and endless possibility, and how the threat of mortality should propel us to explore new and exciting endeavors instead of paralyzing us in an existential rictus. Its power is in it brevity, and its precision, and it makes me eager to hear more vignettes from Verbilla.
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