Karen Harding’s latest single is a catchy, personal, relatable piece of simply gorgeous pop from a soul that’s clearly just as simply gorgeous.
Melbourne-based Karen Harding is moving away from her usual emotional ballads, heading for a sound that’s more introspective, soulful, and relatable. Her latest single, Devil In The Mirror, deals with all the unachievable standards that we unfairly set for ourselves in today’s world. Standards of achievements, social standing, and of many other shapes, most prominent of them are standards of beauty, causing most of us to live in a sphere of insecurity and of becoming devils in our mirrors, constantly telling ourselves that we are not good enough.
Devil In The Mirror sounds haunting. The beat sits in a tight, dynamic pocket throughout the song, subtly shifting its weight to create a distinction between verses and choruses. The drums sound punchy and driving, and endlessly simple, like a beautiful-looking column, always there to support a top floor, and that top floor is a pair of innocent synths and Karen’s unforgettable voice and performance. The synths are the creamy, dreamy pad, playing the simple chords, simply. It sounds light, and airy, barely there, yet it adds so much. The other synth is a melodic square bass one, it plays in the choruses, and it plays an infinitely sweet melodic shape that’s bittersweet. Both synths, along with Harding’s voice, create an atmosphere that’s inviting, intoxicating, and stunning.
Devil In The Mirror is one nice song. The arrangement is so skeletal and simple, yet so efficient and rich, it is hard to understand. What’s easy to understand is that all of Karen Harding’s decisions in the creation of this song just worked beautifully, and the result is a song with a personal message, a voice that stirs and haunts, an instrumental that sticks to the ear, and an atmosphere that grabs the attention, and keeps it.