An album release from Rivky delivers such a beautiful brand of honesty that you end up becoming so attached to the character that it comes along with right from the start as the songs boast this very personal and straightforward approach but the album itself spans a spectrum that encompasses folk, baroque pop, soul, and even Yiddish folk along the way.
The Hypnotized By Youth album is such a combination of cultures all wrapped into one record while also giving that personality and that honesty so there's a lot to get wrapped up in and it feels good to get engulfed by everything that's happening throughout the record.
A lot of the songs are heavily piano based as the main instrument especially of rhythm but there are other instruments that come in and out of play as you have bowed strings and more but what really reaches out and grabs you are these powerful vocals that Rivky pulls off because it's got this impact to it that leaves a mark so that you can really understand where they're coming from a lot of the time and that forms a connection.
This is one of those records where you have to listen to the whole thing through because listening to one or two tracks doesn't give you the full spectrum of what the album actually has to offer and believe me when I tell you, there's a lot going on here.
I found it outstanding how they were able to pull together so much soul and so many different cultures in one record because the album becomes a musically expansive and that character becomes incredibly robust.
The piano performances are outstanding and at times they give songs a theatrical undertone and there are certain tracks that feel almost like they were recorded live on the floor and that energy is just thriving throughout it.
Of course, I could be wrong about the whole live on the floor aspect but either way listening to this record makes you want to go see Rivky perform them live right in your face because if the energy is captured this well on record, then seeing them perform live must be intense.
A lot of this record is just bursting with soul, and you can tell that these songs were inspired and influenced from different places but they all have had an impact on Rivky as an artist and so they brought as much as they could into the record itself.
This was genuine, charismatic, vivacious, driving, and really gave a chance for Rivky to show their presence as an artist and it surely does shine.
There is a cover of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen with a little bit of alterations, but this is one of those examples that feel like it was done live because it's powerful.
A lot of the record has a bit of intensity and that's part of why it becomes so addictive but one of my favorite things about this record is simply that by the time you get to the third or fourth song you begin to expect the unexpected and it only gets better from there in terms of the surprises that await around the corners.
This record was a beautiful escape, and it has the ability to pull you away from your surroundings and put you in all of these different places for a chunk of time whether they're traditional or personal, you are washed away with each individual song, and this is a huge part of why the record has the sort of impact that it does.
This is an example of an artist that delivered a record with much fewer boundaries than the norm and I think that's brilliant because I feel like that's what we need in music these days.
Not to conform to what everybody likes, but rather to create art for the sake of creating it. Because it's good for the soul. This album is good for the soul and was most likely great for Rivky's.
Take a deep dive into this when you get a chance and again, I urge you to listen to the whole record because it's just the best way to go in order to soak in everything it really has to offer.
See how this affects you.
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