Synthesizers don’t always have to be cold and tinny, and in the new single “Can’t Fight the Feeling” by Gabriele Saro, the acclaimed pop/rocker proves as much in one of the warmer tracks of its kind to drop in the last couple of months. Saro’s got a way about him that can turn even the most predictable of pulsing grooves into something that feels enamoring, immersive, and even a bit of an alternative to the status quo in this genre today. He’s putting his skillset to the test here, and really making me excited to find out what comes next.
The guitar parts in “Can’t Fight the Feeling” are minimal but do plenty to punctuate the hook better than a piano could have, and in the other single Saro has out right now, “I Don’t Mind,” the strings play a much bigger role. The fretwork in this latter track has a lot of crunch that reminds us of the aesthetical roots this artist holds true to his heart, and while it’s not the metallic heaviness that some traditional rockers might have gone with, there’s no denying the sportiness of the performance that we’re being given in this recording.
Gabriele Saro’s music is wholly defined by the harmonies he constructs from the ground up with his singing, and I personally think they’re some of the richest components of either one of the singles. Rather than putting everything on a groove, this is a player who likes to use the melodic trappings in his material to facilitate a bigger beat, which is part of the reason why “Can’t Fight the Feeling” has as much of a physical pull as it does. It’s a bit mathier than it needs to be, but in today’s pop/rock rat race, it makes sense to me why he would be a little more intellectual than necessary.
You can definitely tell that Saro cares about the mix, including the details a lot of his peers would have overlooked here, and it shows just in how he stacks the instruments against his lead vocal so eloquently in “I Don’t Mind.” He’s got a fearlessness that doesn’t come from rejecting opportunities to experiment, and it’s clear to me as a critic that he isn’t willing to cut something that sounds halfhearted or even relatively removed from the creative conceptualism he originally had in mind for a project, no matter what it might consist of.
In this industry, those who aren’t constantly trying to take their game to the next level are those who get left behind by the pros, and Gabriele Saro isn’t intending on being in the background any longer. He’s taking some risks with “I Don’t Mind” and “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” but the rewards he’s potentially going to rake in make the effort more than worth it. At the moment, he’s getting the most out of his vocal and making it evident how invested he is in this medium, which is a testament to where he could go with his next smashing release.
Heather Savage
