Yona’s trump card is her credibility

Pop

Yona: Eden. Johanna Kustannus.

★★★★

The 2020s it’s not an easy time for independent pop music performers.

In May Iisa Pajula announced that he was ending his solo career because he felt that his living space had become too small in a music field thirsty for fast hits. Singer-songwriter Laura Sippola made the same decision in September. Sippola’s announcement drew understanding nods from many of the singer’s colleagues on social media.

Also Yona kicks off his new album with a straight bang. “You saw my songs naturally and calmly, no one can listen to them / most of them find boring, somewhat troublesome topics / when everyone just wants to dance / even though no one is having fun anymore”, the singer begins The one who the opening song Adam and Eve.

The opening lines are emphatic because they are detached from the rest of the album’s content.

Eden quickly turns into Yona’s characteristic style of tearing and comprehensive love in a cinematic pop music. Yona is still excellent at dealing with this topic.

Jonah trump card is his credibility. When he sings in his own lyrics about how the emotional storm of love shakes the soul only to soon turn into the bittersweet pain of giving up and saying goodbye, his stories feel real. In Yona’s production you can feel the scars left by the life lived.

Part of this is thanks to Yona’s singing skills. He performs his songs fragilely, as if whispering in the listener’s ear. A skilled singer is able to include a wide range of feelings of sadness, uncertainty, happiness and longing in his interpretation with small gestures.

Against this background, it’s a shame that many of the compositions on the album – which Yona has done together Mauri Syrjälän with – fall halfway. Most The one who the songs start in a handsomely fatal mood, but when you wish they could grow one notch bigger, they end as if in the middle.

Except for the opening and closing songs The one who the songs are three and a half minutes long, and with most of them it feels like the highest mountain peak of the composition was missed. Edus are passionate about standing out from the crowd Silky against Silkycreating the longing for an ending relationship Everything is a loan and the album opener Adam and Evewhich Yona has the patience to mature in peace.

Otherwise, the arrangements of the songs are an excellent job. The style of the music changes smoothly from atmospherics colored by string instruments to machine-based pop sound and from plush band playing to restrained ballads.

Easy hits Eden doesn’t offer to be played on the radio, but it makes you think that hopefully more independent artists won’t end up with the same solution as Pajula and Sippola. Such records make the world a more beautiful place to live.