Track review : Dido ‘Hurricanes’
English songstress Dido is back.
Her latest track “Hurricanes” evokes the passion and pain of companionship, and the desire for it.
The singer’s hauntingly beautiful vocals glide over an acoustic guitar as the song slowly builds to its true trip-hop form. Dido’s breathy and bold tone fills the tumultuous canvas that she’s created with her lyrics. The atmosphere she goes for here leaps at you immediately, and never becomes boring or cliché during it’s slightly over five-minute duration.
The words center on Dido comparing her desire — and perhaps relationships themselves — to the awesome power of hurricanes. With lyrics like ”Let me not turn away from happiness or pain” and “let me face the sound and fury” she acknowledges the hurricane-like destruction that relationships can bring. But importantly, expresses that the calm in the eye of the storm is love.
After a lyrically and sonically intense middle section, the track switches to an a cappella style before a rumbling guitar and high hats draw themselves back in, and quickly fade out into an instrumental end.
With this approach, Dido has done an excellent job of combining her classic sound with a modern feel, showing that after five years she hasn’t yet lost her touch.
What I love most about this track is that it excites me for what’s to come. It gives an exciting preview of the sounds and themes will be heard on Dido’s upcoming album Still on My Mind, which is due March 8th.
“Hurricanes” is the first single off of the project, and given its intensity and message, the next few singles releases should be just as if not more powerful.
