Live review from Girls with Guitars #11
Credit
It’s Starting to Rain
If ever she goes
Hypotheticals (cover)
Strongest
Inevitable
Joya is an upcoming singer-songwriter with a few songs under her belt and is finalising her debut EP which is slated for release pretty imminently.
On the night Joya played an acoustic set with the help of one additional guitarist: I am going to get the only major criticism out of the way, and that is the playing. While she was excellent on the slow songs, on some of the faster songs her strumming was a little messy in places, and
I somehow felt that with 2 guitars, she probably could have made the backing a little more interesting with more fills and descants (although on the how I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it). While writing the review, I went to the trouble of checking out the few tracks she had put
online and I would recommend that she considers playing live with a full band…
Moving on to the good things, for a start Joya has a beautiful voice which is particularly suited for her genre of music (folk/pop), and she used it extremely effectively in expressing her music, drawing her audience into her world. Her songs were mainly on subjects which were clearly important to her life, judging by the heart-felt and soulful lyrics, which, together with her voice, punched a hole straight through my heart, which is no mean feat given that I consider myself a very “technical” listener – I would say she managed to mesmerise her audience on the night.
In conclusion, Joya’s set was thoroughly enjoyable and an excellent choice to open the show, and I eagerly await the release of her debut EP.
– CJ