Readers of our journal are already familiar with the name of young performer Eliot Thompson, an eighteen-year-old student at Berklee College of Music. The previous release “King Ivory”, which we wrote about, told a story from the perspective of a teenager struggling with addiction and trying to establish a connection with his mother. In that song it was noticeable that Eliot is not afraid to use complex themes in his work. And now he takes on a task that many avoid: to describe not the moment of loss, but its prolonged shadow, “the side consequences of loss”. It’s about how a breakup corrodes old connections, tears apart a shared past and forces one to reconsider the circle of friends.
His new pop-rock ballad, “Icy Roads,” featuring Owen Daniel is all about this. Using thoughtful lyrics, the track conveys the struggle between nostalgia and regret and, ultimately, persistence in moving forward. The theme holds on a solid and atmospheric foundation. The rhythmic is an expressive bass line that sets the tempo and leads the entire story. Its elastic, slightly funky groove shows how powerful the low register alone can be. A rather smart move: to create an illusion of lightness so the lyrics hit harder, because Eliot sings about the loss of a friend and the entire ecosystem around this relationship-mutual friends, family connections, habitual rituals. A breakup is rarely clean; it leaves an entire network of cracks. It is precisely in Thompson’s voice that this fragility sounds particularly distinctly-soft, slightly hoarse, like a confession in private. In the middle, Owen Daniel appears. Their voices unite in a dialogue-two voices in one head. In my opinion, such a decision adds volume, makes the song more universal.
Produced by David Morgan and mastered by Stuart Hawkes, the track achieves an ideal balance: here there are both sharp, rock accents and a clean, memorable pop melody. I’m sure many will listen to it on repeat. “Icy Roads” is built to hook from the first chord, but unfolds gradually-a typical technique of indie pop of recent years, which Thompson has mastered surprisingly quickly. For eighteen years, this is an impressive level of mastery. We look forward with impatience to new works by Eliot Thompson.
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