Four years passed over her experience on a famous TV show Isabela Nóbrega has finally released her debut full-length “Young” (2018). The album is the unsurprising outcome of a talented, independent, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentist musician who is struggling to build a career of her own by the rules she settles for herself. Not an easy task for a musician living in a southern European country with a lame indie music scene.
“Young” is an interesting album that roves around the idea of time passing by with a certain sense of nostalgia attached to it although in some ways the album concept is pointing out not only to the passing of time and to the growing process but above all unleashes the idea that it is the closing of an artistic evolutionary stage and the opening of another one that might be different considering that this debut full length apart from other features seems to be more of a workbook and not a path for the future or a definitive musical statement.
Listening throughout the album one easily reckons that Isabela Nóbrega is a soulful, talented musician that seems to be at ease within the Indie Pop genre and that’s probably why the track list of the album all seem to match this aesthetic soundscape though Indie Pop can range from Lorde to Metronomy, from Eleanor Friedberger to Billie Eilish, from Perfume Genius to Phantogram and all in between. And there is in fact a lot in between actually! Isabela Nóbrega’s sort of indie pop venture sounds more like bedroom pop trying to mature into indie rock and this might explain why the stand out songs of the album are in fact nice examples of what Isabela Nóbrega could be doing in the future.
Stand out songs: Young; K-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e; We Expected Every Dream
6.5/10