With “Your Hero Is Not Dead”, the exceptional British talent Westerman presents a wonderfully timeless and decelerated debut album, which creates its very own hopeful pop world between sweet vocal melodies, accomplished guitar playing and intimate electronics. The two previously released EPs “Call and Response” (2017) and “Ark” (2018) built a bed of laurels, on which Westerman appeared in the twelve varied and emotional album songs that he and his long-time partner in Crime Nathan Jenkins (Bullion) produced in the Portuguese sun, playfully easy and pleasantly carefree.
After their debut at Hopeless Records with 'Skinny Dipping', the band quickly became known and was nominated as an 'International Breakthrough Artist' at the Heavy Music Award in 2018 and almost 2 years later the successor PINK ELEPHANT follows, who is a little more into the alternative -Pop moves, but will still be an important release for fans of Neck Deep, State Champs and Paramore.
The debut album of the trained jazz singer Zola Mennenöh from Cologne / Berlin combines elements from alternative folk, classical and jazz to an eloquent work of art, whose "delightful interplay between great sadness and gentle hope is a hot candidate for the perfect accompaniment through the dark season" ( neolyd.com). Zola's songwriting brings back memories of artists like PJ Harvey, Beth Orton and Cat Power, and sometimes southern Gothic shades of Neko Case and Nina Nastasia. Zola works in various formations, including the a cappella quartet Of Cabbages And Kings, the composer collective Sung Sound, as a singer in Ensemble O. and in a duo with her mentor, the Berlin-based US bassist Greg Cohen.