REVIEW: Sa’ra Charismata — Life is Not About Control (SINGLE)
Inside of just ten seconds, the new single from Sa’ra Charismata — “Life is Not About Control” — already has a firm grasp on its audience, and in this track, it all starts with a distant beat that swells with each passing second. Even before the virtuosic vocal enters the picture, there’s a cosmopolitan feel to the music growing around us, and by the time verses do come into focus, the tone of the song has already been set. In “Life is Not About Control,” this player isn’t as interested in structuring a brooding hook as she is making a full-bodied sonic experience that features her vocal as the final cherry on top, and from a critical perspective, it just might be the most mature work in her discography thus far.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/iamsaracharismata/
The chorus in this single has a lot of spunk, but I don’t know that it would have the kind of effect it does here were there any vocalist other than Sa’ra Charismata holding the mic. She contributes such a striking buoyancy to the track with her singing that it’s difficult to imagine the sway of the verses sounding as heavy without her ironically soft voice leading the way. She’s very methodical in her approach towards the lyrics in “Life is Not About Control,” alluding to an appreciation of avant-pop and EDM that could benefit her experimental side quite a bit if appropriated in more material she records in the near future.
“Life is Not About Control” has a very slimmed-down instrumental foundation in comparison to some of the content Charismata has stuck her name on before now, but with a vocal as potent as hers is, she really doesn’t need a lot of frills to sound like a total boss here. Contrarily, she’s working the minimalism in this piece like it’s second nature, and making it all the harder for discriminating critics to credit her abilities to studio bells and whistles, or worse yet, a bit of fleeting luck. She’s the real deal, getting down and dirty with a harmony if she has to, and a lot of what this song is made of goes a long way towards solidifying the respect she deserves from critics and fans alike in 2021.
AMAZON: https://music.amazon.in/albums/B09BBC5TKR
Sa’ra Charismata sure has grown up a lot since she dropped 2016’s intriguing “Addicted (To Your Messed up Kinda Lovin),” and if there were any detractors left ahead of this new song’s release, I think they’re going to be effectively silenced once “Life is Not About Control” finds steady rotation on the indie dial this autumn. As her name would suggest, Charismata has a lot of natural charm that finds its way into her music whether she’s turning it on full blast or just allowing for a trickle of emotion to enter the big picture of a song, and in “Life is Not About Control,” she affirms herself as being among the elite players you need to be following if you’re as into powerhouse independent pop music as I am.
Colin Jordan
