Words by Dein Moore @deingerous1
Eliza Shaddad has come a long way since the first time I saw her headline an open-mic night in East London. I remember picking up a copy of her first EP, which had a delightfully handmade cover and a CD that didn't work (thankfully I got another copy the next time we met). When I did my very first blog I featured her as the debut artist on it and now here we are again – except this time after much fanfare from the like of the BBC, the Sunday Times and Clash magazine – for her latest song, ‘Wars’, taken from the EP 'Run'.
The song starts with a guitar riff slowly bleeding through a touching vocal line that seeps in later. It’s quite different to the Eliza songs I'm used to and I like it very much. ‘Wars’ still features her sweet, sultry vocals on top of the track but there is a certain roughness to them now, with some layers of distorted guitars and a heavier set of drums putting a bit of grunt on the track and delivering a powerful and somewhat angry edge to the song.
‘Wars’ is a welcome change to what I expect from Eliza Shaddad – although it’s still quite folky it has a totally different bite to it now; there are some obvious rock influences and there's nothing wrong with that. Despite its differences, ‘Wars’ sits well with Eliza’s previous catalogue and has piqued my interest for what she’ll do next.
'Wars' is from Eliza Shaddad's EP, 'Run', out on Beatnik in early 2016