An Honest and Lush EP from Mikol Frachey

An EP release from Mikol Frachey delivers a set of songs that tell stories from personal perspectives and, in turn, give off such a lush and introspective character that you get attached to it all pretty quickly.

The Stories To Tell EP is packed with exactly that: Stories. You get such great descriptive lyrics that paint pictures, inner thoughts that come spilling out for all to soak in, and a warm tonality that sort of invites you into it all.

The record starts with a track called "Valley Girl Blues", which does indeed boast a great blues rock style, starting with cleaner guitars and then exploding into a heavier rock approach, and it all comes together with a graceful but attitude-riddled flow that again, both so much character that you can't turn away from it.

This is an excellent track to introduce the record with because it does boast some of those heavy-handed Staples that you hear throughout the EP itself.

Her vocals have some swagger, this great vibrato and approach, everything about this track puts you right there in the moment, and even though you're paying attention to the lyrics, you still sort of get pulled into the music of it all as well.

The guitar work on this track is outstanding and is performed with as much Soul as the vocals are, which I found refreshing.

Having said all that, this is an EP you want to listen to from start to finish. There are more than a few surprises around its corners, and again, these are all stories that serve almost like chapters in the artist's life, so missing out on one just doesn't make any sense.

Yes, songs like this one stand on their own two feet perfectly as singles; however, listening to the full record gives you an experience that you're supposed to have.

Listening through the entire thing gives you the full story, and that is how you get the different sides of her personality.

Throughout the record, you get blues, Americana, hints of country, rock, soul, pop, and more, all rolled into one release.

"Dream Back" does an outstanding job of blending elements of Americana and rock along with a pop overcoat. The song is insanely catchy and boasts as much color as it does edginess.

You have a flowing and vast undertone with a spirited chorus that becomes quickly infectious.

There is that pop underbelly throughout the whole thing. The full ep has loads of pop laced throughout it, so there are hooks and choruses both musically and vocally that bounce around in your brain for hours or even days after the songs have ended, and the only way to satiate that is to go back and listen to it all again.

This is part of the beauty of a record like this.

Mikol is an example of an artist who gives pieces of herself in her music. She's telling you her stories, not just any stories.

Some of these are slightly vulnerable, while others are more in your face, but all in all, you are getting these different angles and sides of her persona and her artistry all at once.

One of my favorite tracks on this record reaches into a vintage country soundscape. The song is called "My Whole Life In A Memory", and it's absolutely gorgeous.

This song exudes such a unique breed of honesty and description in those lyrics, and you just get stuck on that for a while.

The music of it is beautifully done, performed with soul, heart, and some outstanding instrumentation like lap steel. It could actually be pedal steel; it's hard for me to tell the difference sometimes, but that's part of the element that gives it such a country backbone.

It also adds this beautiful layer of texture to the song.

The closing track to the record is called "Hangover Like Love", which rolls some of that blues back into perspective and does so with a contemporary pop overtone with more outstanding guitar work and these layers.

There's a depth to songs like these. Lyrically, these songs can be very connective, but musically, they can set moods. Those two elements come together like puzzle pieces throughout this record and showcase how Mikol can construct songs with a certain element of Freedom.

This is a record that is built with fewer boundaries built around it. She's not reinventing the wheel, but she's taking things into her own hands. She's creating an atmosphere that's all her own, and she's inviting you into that atmosphere.

The whole EP has a beautiful aesthetic, and again, it's that personality and character that you get attached to and that pulls you into the entire thing so I suggest listening to this record with headphones on.

This is one of the best ways to take in all the layers, textures, soundscapes, moods, emotions, and cinematic undercurrents that many of the songs offer.

It's a record that has a lot going on, but it's beautiful to get swallowed up by.

Check this record out right now and again, try and do the whole thing from start to finish because it's the best way to listen, and remember where you heard it first.

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