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Sub-shredders, my name is Logan aka Spiderhands and welcome to Nespi Reviews
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where today we have ourselves a track by an act named Bernd Bridges titled The Girl Behind the Mask.
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And if we switch over to here, we have ourselves a track on the screen on their website.
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It should be noted before I go into it that there are various versions of this track.
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There is an English version which I'll be listening through today.
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There is also a German or a Dutch version of the audio.
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There are also English and Dutch subtitles for you to listen to, English or German subtitles for you to look through if you want.
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So without further ado, we're going to listen to this track and we're going to hear what we think.
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Can I make it full screen? There we are, let's go.
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Very intriguing off the bat with what will go going on with these vocal lines and
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the little clappy sounds, light percussion there. Oh, funky bass line with the quarter notes.
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I like the vocal line, there's a funkiness to it alongside the bass groove there.
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You know, very competent performance so far.
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And short bridge section there to flow into this next part, the chorus, you know, great transitions.
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Oh, unexpected chord there, I wasn't expecting it to lift like that.
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Okay, the softness of those hi-hats, whatever they're doing near the cymbals, has given me life
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because I just enjoy how like pitter-pattery they are, you know.
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The mix is tight, you know, the engineering is solid, you know. I like the cool responses we
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have with the piano parts before the vocals and the chorus there. It's nicely tixed,
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there's absolutely no filler within this track. Bringing back down the bass focus.
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I love the vibrato there in their head voice, it was wonderful. There's a little bit more
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intensity to the expression in this chorus which continues to develop it further, makes the listener
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wonder what's going to happen next. There's a bit of bluesy pentatonic stuff going on with those
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scale shapes in the piano parts, but the triads, you know, that's a really simple chord progression
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there. So it's not like any of the sort of like melodic complexity is going to like alienate people.
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Are they clapping as well as the snares? That's what I think I was hearing earlier.
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I mean the drum groove is so tight there with those little sort of like snare fills. They're
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clearly pocketing on the kit, you know, they're not trying to overstep into the the lyricist's
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space. The vocals are the focal point despite the the curiosity and the the interest I've got in the
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backing parts.
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There's like a backing vocal there that's kind of doing a cool response alongside the dancing of
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the piano on the right side there. And I'm enjoying that. It's a nice extra element here
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that might have been here earlier I'm not sure but it's good. It's good.
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That's a pleasant way to end it with the little ascending.
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Kind of makes you wonder whether they did actually try and find the the mask for the person at the end.
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But still that was a solid single. That's a solid first introduction to Burned Bridges.
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And this is my conclusion to my review of Burned Bridges with the girl behind the mask.
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The mask. What do I think this track is about? I think this track is about someone, right? Who is
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interested in this woman but they don't really know who she is because she just hides herself away.
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There is no like openness there. There's a lot of mystery. And so they're trying to figure out should
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I actually continue to invest time and effort into this relationship with or pursuing this person
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or is it just not worth my time to do so. And that major lift in the piano at the end kind of
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suggested that maybe it was something that was worth doing. Maybe the joy of the chase was not
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knowing. I'm not sure but regardless it was an interesting story and I enjoyed listening to it.
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So it's great. Again great first impression. I'm sure a lot of people are probably going to be able
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to relate to a story like this. You know wondering whether the person they know is actually real or
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not. I'm sure everyone knows someone who's kind of fake. But um yeah good good story so far. I mean
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like the vocals as well. They were done really well. I liked the style of it. I would have liked
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a little bit more dynamic range to his vocal recording and I saw how hard he was belting it out
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in those um in the video. So I'm wondering if there could have been more of a more dynamic
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range in the vocals from a studio perspective. I think that it was really tightly mixed. It was
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mixed like a commercial pop single basically but I think it could have been a little bit more
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dynamic range in the vocal ones there. I know that maybe it was just to try and keep it tight with the
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other elements of the mix but still that's how I feel about it. Because I feel as if no matter
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how hard he sort of like belted it out into that microphone it was great to listen to but you didn't
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really feel it anymore if that makes sense. You didn't get that sort of an I don't know if we got
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the full intensity of the performance from that but like outside of that I think the vocal technique
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and the head and chest voice was great. Nice legato vibrato passages there. There was variation in the
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expression there. A little bit more sort of calmer collected in that verse part and really kind of
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getting it known in the chorus part. So great sort of duality there. Tone and performatively.
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The guy had a clear understanding what he wanted to accomplish with his vocal melody. I think that
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he emoted well from what I could see anyways to that story and it sounded really authentic
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and it sounded really important to him. Like a very personal thing. So I'm glad that he got to
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write the song about it. I'm glad that he got to sing about it. It was well worth listening to from
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that perspective alone but the track itself for three minutes is nice and short. Like this is
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there's absolutely no filler here whatsoever and I really appreciate and respect that because
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especially when you've got such a sort of conservative nature of the performances on the
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like the keys, the bass, sort of drum parts etc. All that kind of stuff. I think it makes sense to
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do that. I think that the chord progressions that we had here worked really well to accentuate
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the melody lines there with the sort of kind of a bit of moodiness and sort of like a soul kind
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of feel to it with some bluesiness there as well. The pentatonic shift shifts especially in those
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upper key parts. The bass line as well, the funkiness of that. Keeping the groove strong
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and the chord note accents alongside the drum kit accent in those quarters as well with an
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eighth note groove across the board with some occasional sixteenths was smart too. There was
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a lot of movement in this as if we're in a rush to find this person and take the mask off which I
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appreciate there. There's good synergy there with the lyrics. Again I'm wondering if it's
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going to benefit it from more dynamic range from like a studio perspective as well. Everything was
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so tightly mixed but that again like that is a sound that some people like and there is also an
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argument to be made that in this music nowadays if your song isn't loud is a good quality and
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that's I know people who are like oh it's quiet so it's not good quality which is you know debatable
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you know and but this is not the time to discuss that. What I'm trying to insinuate here is that
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a lot of I heard a lot of influences from like 70s and 80s music in this like with the use of
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the keys and other elements there and the smooth that funky kind of groove there. I'm wondering if
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we could potentially incorporate a dynamic range there so to make it sound a little bit more sort
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of old school but that's okay it's it's fine regardless. A little swishes and bits of foley
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in there as well I could hear occasionally which kind of made a little bit more sort of like um
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how do I describe it? It just added to the overall aesthetic and was charming to listen to and I mean
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like when I listen to the motif there especially in that chorus section there and some of those
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sort of bridgey bits I do hear a sense of mystery and trepidation and uncertainty which again goes
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well with the um with the you know the vocal parts and and the lyrics so that's good there's a clear
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connection between different elements of this track it makes sense throughout and there's very
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sort of seamless transitions between the various elements here partly because of how like the
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the compression's handled but but also uh just simply because it's a really smooth tight performance
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yeah everything there's not a note out of place. The recording mixing and mastering the studio
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production aside from the comments I made from like the dynamic range perspective which is
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obviously arguable um everything else was fantastic I've got no doubts about it whatsoever
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um the vocals are nicely filtered EQ and there's nice a bit of reverb on there great presence in
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the mix alongside the drums the bass the key elements and everything like that nice and full
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sounding no no worries about that whatsoever nice and wide in the stereo field no weird resonant
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frequencies in the frequency spectrum the leveling of the elements was great um or Egan already
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spoken about dynamic range there um I think that outside of that it was nice and loud without
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pumping you know that's the thing that's the thing would have killed it like it's okay to play with
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less dynamic range when you're doing mastering but then obviously if you then got it to a point
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where it was loud enough that it kind of sounded like it was writhing or pulsating which is
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something I've heard it sounds over compressed you know we didn't have that situation again it's a
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commercial grade master um aside from the dynamic range thing I've talked about probably too many
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times in this review I'm happy with literally everything else is a fantastic track something
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I egregiously haven't mentioned up until this point because I was 50/50 on it because the guitars were
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mostly a sub layer they were mostly a sub layer especially in some of those bridge parts and
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everything like that but the guitar chords there were some extensions there's some jazzy sort of
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like um seventh chords etc were fantastic I just wanted to bring up the guitar parts as well just
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because I feel like it'd be egregious not to I'm glad I double checked but thank you very much for
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watching my review of Burned Bridges with the girl behind the mask hopefully you enjoyed it if you did
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please do go check out their various social medias and their website and stay cool and stay safe and
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please remember to support your local musicians and artists at this point in time as they need
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the help more than ever with all the crazy stuff going on in the world and I will catch you in the
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next review spider hands out
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