Accolade – Tria Prima (Album – Danse Macabre)
Genre/Influences: Ethereal.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Accolade is a Seattle (USA) based band, which joined hands with Danse Macabre to unleash their new album. The band is driven by singer Stefanie Renée plus Aaron Goldstein and Mike Hines.
Content: One of the first elements emerging from this work is the beautiful and classically trained voice of Stefanie Renée. She has a noticeable high timbre of voice, injecting this Ethereal and Neo-Classic aspect to the work. Sound-wise the music has been composed by different authentic/acoustic instruments and Electronic treatments. It’s a delicate composition, although featuring rousing passages, which together with the vocals create an elevating sensation.
+ + + : Accolade is a band I can’t remember having ever heard before, but, which I’ll not forget soon. I don’t want to compare their sound and the heavenly sensation of the vocals with Qntal, but there are for sure similarities. The delicacy of the composition together with the graceful singing of Stefanie Renée has something magic. Songs like “Relentless” and “Unconscious” both are little Ethereal pearls. The songs have something dark and yet enlightening and with a perfect balance between music and vocals. Another great song is the last one; “O Virga Ac Diadema” sounds more Electro-driven, but has a similar effect as the aforementioned cuts.
– – – : I can’t say this album has true minus points, but it just takes a few songs to realize the real potential of “Tria Prima”.
Conclusion: Accolade is a talented Ethereal formation, which deserves more recognition. “Tria Prima” is a beautiful album to watch out for.
Best songs: “Relentless”, “Unconscious”, “O Virga Ac Diadema”, “Confliction”, “Encantation”.
Rate: 8½.
Artist: www.facebook.com/accoladeseattle
Label: www.dansemacabre-group.de / www.facebook.com/dansemacabrerec
About Accolade
Accolade is a Seattle-based trio built around singer Stefanie Renee, with Aaron Goldstein on bass, keyboards, percussion and guitar, and Mike Hines on keyboards and percussion. The band credits Hines as a new addition for this album.
“Tria Prima” was released on 3 September 2021 and distributed by Danse Macabre Records in Potsdam, Germany. It holds ten tracks: “O Euchari in leta via”, “Serotonin”, “Surrender”, “Confliction”, “Relentless”, “Esoterica”, “Unconscious”, “Horizon”, “Encantation” and “O virga ac diadema”. The band recorded and engineered the album in Seattle; Martin Bowes mixed and mastered it at The Cage in Coventry, England. Aaron Goldstein handled the album art and design and Jades Pain the photography. The band states that the album reached number 5 on the German Alternative Charts.
Discogs holds no profile for this act. The entries filed under the same name belong to a British folk rock group active between 1969 and 1971, so the release history above rests on the band’s own Bandcamp page and the label listing.
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
