Daily archives:January 3, 2015

  • Singer-songwriter Nick Santino has blossomed into quite the solo artist since leaving A Rocket to the Moon in 2013. Where his former band had only hints of the midwest and barely a twinge of country to it, his newest EP is decidedly country. It bears more resemblance to Santino’s short lived sort-of-solo act Nick Santino & The Northern Wind. Under that moniker, Santino released Going Home EP and The Ones You Meet Along the Way: A Collection of Stories from the Road EP in 2013. The records are more electric than his newest EP, but they provide a good transition between his career as a frontman to his career as a solo musician. Compared to his past alt rock efforts, Savannah is completely stripped back, populated by little more than Santino’s slow strum. The EP is built almost entirely by acoustic guitar and gentle piano, a backdrop which fits Santino’s voice perfectly. Savannah sounds like Santino has cemented himself in whatever sub-genre of country he’s cornering. It isn’t anything like what Brad Paisley or Luke Bryan play, but rather something resembling an acoustic session. The slide guitar and various other instruments of Santino’s 2014 release Big Skies are nowhere to be found. Instead these six quick tracks, which follow up Live in Sao Paulo, a split EP he recorded with The Maine, make a science out simplicity. The opening track “Rio” is a bright point. The storyline is sweet. Santino paints a picture of eating breakfast in bed and running away to Mexico t[...]