Iyla Elise Releases "True North: Single
- R.A.G.
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
“True North” by Iyla Elise opens with a lone tremolo guitar, and from the first few seconds I felt that pull of instant nostalgia. It is a sparse song, stripped down to guitar and piano, and that minimalism gives her voice all the space it needs. The lyrics matter here, and I appreciated how straightforward they were. Elise doesn’t hide behind dense imagery. She leans on simple metaphors, sometimes walking down a road, sometimes searching for direction, but always circling back to the same idea of trying to find clarity.
What I liked most is how the song balances reflection with determination. It carries a wistful tone, but it is not content to stay in the past. Instead, it looks at memory as a way to keep moving forward, to keep pressing on even when the path isn’t obvious. The performance feels honest in a way that makes its simplicity resonate even more. By the end, I wasn’t thinking about how minimal the arrangement was. I was thinking about the persistence in her delivery and how it made the theme of perseverance feel earned.
The song lingers like an echo after it ends, the kind of track that sneaks back into your head hours later. It feels like Elise is less interested in showing off and more focused on writing something that quietly connects, which is exactly why “True North” works so well.