Ellen Xylander – Reckless Hearted

“It does a good number of things right”

Tim: You probably don’t remember Ellen, who previously gave us One Day We’ll Make It Home, although she did inspire you to wave your lighter in the air.

Tom: I’m coming to realise that I only remember about one in ten of the songs that come through here, Tim.

Tim: Well, given that we’ve got through almost 1500 now (bloody hell), that’s not’s a terrible rate. Anyway, clearly one to capitalise on her success, Ellen’s waited less than four years to release a follow-up.

Tim: I like that, and quite a lot at that, because it does a good number of things right – in chronological order, we’ve the violins in the background matching well with her stop/start vocal, the heavier introduction into the chorus with those beats and then her carrying the melody very nicely with the long notes, with her voice fitting the tone of the song very well.

Tom: Agreed: the start of the chorus is just lovely, but I don’t reckon there’s enough… stuff in there. The verses and choruses all merge together in the first half of the song, and the actual ‘reckless hearted’ hook just isn’t quite good enough.

Tim: Oh. Well, if that and the repeat of it aren’t enough for you, we’ve the middle eight with another string section brought in to raise the pitch of it all, hanging around for the rest of the track and basically wrapping it all up nicely.

Tom: It is a glorious middle eight, and while I think the melody could use a bit more excitement in there — yep, that last chorus is good.

Tim: Indeed – let’s hope we don’t need to wait another four years, shall we?

Ellen Xylander – One Day We’ll Make It Home

Pleasant. Just, nice.

Tim: Norway, meet country music. Country music, this is Norway.

Tom: They’ve clearly got a budget for this, as they’ve actually shipped her out to California to film at Kirk’s Rock.

Tim: I really like this. Pleasant, just…nice. While ‘nice’ is a bit of a dull word, it does sum up this song. It’s just, well, nice.

Tom: Ooh, now I’d go further than that. It’s really very good – but I also reckon that’s because the first part of that chorus takes some serious inspiration from classic tearjerker 80s power ballad Up Where We Belong.

Tim: Hmm. Although I do have one niggle, best summed up by my thoughts of the last sixty seconds or so: “Ooh, back to the chorus. It’s nice….though, it’s repeating a bit….hang on, there’s a minute left, we can’t start the ending now, surely, not with only six words…can we?…OOH! VARIATION!…oh…well that must have been a whole ten seconds, and we’re back…OK, there are SIX WORDS. SIX WORDS.”

Tom: Can’t hear you. Too busy swaying back and forth with a lighter in the air.

Tim: Summation: I don’t mind a rinse and repeat every now and again, but I would like a few more lyrics please.