Album Review

Holly Drummond – Cloud Nine EP

• 1st Aug 2012

Cloud Nine is the latest release from a young woman with drive and ambition. Eighteen year old Holly Drummond hails from Edinburgh and already has EPs and several widely viewed videos to her credit. This new collection of six acoustic songs shows her to be a singer with an even and expressive voice. It also shows she has a keen ear for a melody and considerable talent on the production side, as the whole EP was made from her bedroom.

The first track, Girl That You Don’t Know, is an uptempo song that has a defiance to it, as Drummond seeks to state her identity. The phrasing is good and the smooth vocals work well with the guitar backing. Out of My Mind is a slower track with a vulnerability to the vocals that tells of heartbreak and regret, yet there is also a feeling of resilience and moving forward.

Royalty has a slightly more upbeat feel that most of the EP and shows that Holly Drummond can move up a notch when she wants to. There’s a sarcastic tone to the lyrics that works well and the guitar work provides a fine backing.

The Hands Of Change is a duet and the contrast between Drummond’s emotional delivery and the deeper tones of Lewis Mokler is lovely. This slow song has an air of melancholy as the two lovers mark the passing of time and dream of what might yet be. The title track Cloud Nine is more of a mainstream pop song, a nice love song with a keyboard backing the vocals.

Mournful strings back the vocals for the closing song, Free, telling of being trapped and trying to break away. An air of wistfulness shines through as Drummond’s even voice communicates her desires nicely. And the double tracked vocals late in the song work very well.

Holly Drummond shows a maturity well beyond her years on this EP. Her voice is good and she clearly has songwriting and production talent to go along with it. At the moment she is unsigned, but surely her days of bedroom production will not last much longer.