SOLIS – Stairway To Heaven Album Review
Stairway To Heaven is a 20 minutes extended play by young singer/songwriter, Solis. While her peers busy themselves with making club-oriented projects as debut albums, Solis delivers a conceptual body of work that bears a lot of inspiration and meaning. Her music is a mix of alternate R&B, neo-soul, and a handful of psychedelics.
Solis’s superpower is her ability to use her vocal tone and lyrics to create a captivating and vivid mental picture in the minds of her listeners. For example, in the first song and first 109 seconds of the album (The Lonely Star), Solis plays the character of a lonely girl sitting under the moonlight. The song is a befitting intro to the album as it also sets the calming ambience for the transition that will take place on the next track, Angel.
In The Lonely Star, the character is sad, lonely, and broken. But appeared to have found solace and comfort in an imaginary celestial being on the next track (Angel); This creates a fascinating concept of self-realization and redemption. Sonically, Angel is beyond amazing! The texture of Solis’s voice, the lyrics, and even the beat-switch in the final part of the song make it an enjoyable work of art.
Nevertheless, Stairway To Heaven is more than just a project about the circle of loneliness to redemption. It is also about the complexities and entanglements that come with love. Songs like Without U paint a mental picture of vulnerability and patience. While the track, Love Games (Feat. Champ) gives the feeling of anger and losing one’s cool. A duality that usually comes with being hopelessly in love.
The song, Abeg (feat Amindi) easily stands out as the finest moment of the album. The intoxicating acoustic guitars, the bouncy mid-tempo beat, and Solis’s expansive vocals all come together to create a cloud of sweet-sounding music that reaches down to the very soul. The next song, No Feelz is also a great piece of work and a good transition from the previous track. The ghostly atmosphere on the song mixes perfectly with Solis’ voice as she expresses her feelings with impressive musical renditions.
The featured artists on the EP were all great additions to the body of work. DAP The Contract’s verse on the Outro of the album saved the track from being utterly boring and comatose. Champs’ verse on Love Games was impressive and straight to the point.
Overall, Stairway To Heaven is an impressive album and a testament to Solis’s amazing talent. She is very much on her way to success, and we wish her the very best on her journey.
Album Score: 9/10
