Review: Nite Jewel – Am I Real EP
Nite Jewel - Am I Real EP (2010) [Gloriette] // Grade: A-
Listening to Nite Jewel feels like being caught up in a pillow fight. The bedroom lights are dimmed as fluffy smacks catch you off-guard, tangling your hair over your eyes and obscuring your view. The scene unfolds slowly, the air above calm in waiting for your next move.
From full-length Good Evening, Nite Jewel emerged in paleness, offering tranquil dance melodies shifting under a bedroom disco ball. The act’s recently released Am I Real? EP finds Nite Jewel gripped to the same ideals, but projecting their sounds with a newfound boldness. The former grit and buzz of their production has vanished, replaced by smooth, slow-burning synth funk. Ramona Gonzales’s warbles and quiet wails remain built on repetition and ambiance, though this time we hear a greater attention to tunefulness and a smattering of straightforward vocal melody lines.
Nite Jewel work well (perhaps, better) in the space of an EP. Six songs forces them to put their most focused selections forward, and we’re left with one solid track after another. The ordering of the tracks seem tirelessly considered, beginning with the atmospheric “Another Horizon” in which Gonzales’s voice simultaneously provides both the upfront and backing vocal sounds. Her voice comes forth like a wounded bird; delicate, tentative, calling out with immediacy. “We Want Our Things” takes a step away from the disco beat lines, picking up the sounds of synthpop before transitioning into a glittery, grinding interlude. Over moments of clear vocal melody, a more structured Nite Jewel begins to come into view, setting the stage on which spectacular closer and title track “Am I Real?” plays out as a fully developed composition of smooth jazz tones supporting a powerhouse display of vocals from Gonzales that leave the impression of capable lyricism and sublime mood-setting.
Am I Real? is a testament to the idea of hearing a band in their early days, and that unshakable feeling of excitement in your gut, knowing that yeah right now they’re rough around the edges, but there’s something really special here and down the line they are going to shine. Congratulations Nite Jewel, you’ve made the leap from interesting, to shining.
