Treble and Reverb Album Review

Have you heard about it yet? Undoubtedly the best NZ music album to be released this year? It’s called ‘Treble and Reverb’ by Aaradhna or Radz as she introduces herself to people. Even if you haven’t heard about the album you would have heard the first single from the album “Wake up,” which hit the number one plays spot on iTunes its first day of release.  “Wake up” is just the beginning of a newfound attitude partnered with old school soul and described by Radz as Retro/Metro, and all the songs on the album are just as good! Treble and Reverb is to be released on Nov 9^th and is the follow up to her Sophmore album Sweet Soul Music from 2008.

When Aaradhna’s sound spills through the speakers in her opening track, you learn that it’s not just treble and reverb that work in unison. It’s her silky voice over that doo-wop sound, BB King style guitar paired with snare drums, Aaradhna and music just go so well together. The album has undertones of Amy Winehouse, Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, and Little Anthony and the Imperials. As a result, her writing has elevated and her knack for hypnotizing harmonies is amplified and so predominant in the later tracks “Crying like a Wolf” and “You Don’t Love Me Anymore.”  

While the late 50’s/60’s doo-wop style was present in Aaradhna’s first album with songs like ‘Downtime’ and ‘I Love You’, Treble & Reverb goes all the way with it.  She also favours sass over sweetness as you will find is one of the main themes through-out the album; her beautiful voice belying the ugly things she’s threatening on the cheeky and hilarious ‘Lorena Bobbit’. Or there’s the way she tells a girl she’ll kick her ass, in the nicest way possible, on ‘Miss Lovely.’ One of the lines in ‘Cool Shoes’ goes, “sucks that I ain’t cool enough to hang with your gang!’ But really it’s pretty safe to say that everyone is going to be rocking to this album come November 9^th and there will be no one cooler than Aaradhna. 

Written entirely by Aaradhna, and produced by P Money and Evan Short, Treble & Reverb is definitely an album that should be on everyone’s wish list come November, it promises to be one of this nations best ever releases.