By Eleanor Stammeijer (@ElStammjam)
Before spinning Wings for the first time Mozez was an unknown to me. Since then he has become a solid fixture on my iTunes. Polished vocals, an all-out performance with moments of enjoyable restraint, Wings demonstrates the nuances of R ‘n’ B, and how singing the loudest or packing every track with every altered instrument under the sun isn’t how it should be done.
Wings is the headliner for the album, and it doesn’t disappoint. It introduces the elements the album boasts, such as the interesting blend of orchestral sounds with electronic effects, of course with fantastic vocals laced throughout. The highlight of the album comes in the form of ‘Run River’. We get a dose of Sia vibes as the vocals and chords build to the kind of bombast you would expect from Tina Turner’s ‘Rolling on the River’. The combination of the different vocals with their harmonies make the track sound as if a whole chorus is performing. Powerful and fantastically catchy, it’s the album’s strongest earworm.
Every track seems to run through a natural progression; the repeated drum and guitar refrain in ‘Hannah’, what sounds like flutes or other woodwind in ‘Broken Toy’, the piano melody in ‘The Absolute’, and then the tracks that hone in on the vocals such as ‘Coloured Dreams’ – a track which, only after scrolling through Mozez’s website, I discovered was a nod to The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’.
Some tracks are rawer than the others. ‘The Absolute’ is edgier with deeper tones. ‘Planets’ is another and, as its name suggests, feels far more ethereal and distant. Wrapping up the album is ‘Mirror Mirror’, a track that lets us fully appreciate how much of an incredibly talented singer Mozez is.
‘Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest of us all’ is the central lyric, and a powerful one at that. Combining the classic fairytale line with the more realistic obsession of being the best, it demonstrates once more a talent for contemporary flare among established ideas.
