Jessica Carter Altman is serenading us with a lot of desire in her heart in the all-new single, the power-style ballad “Blood Moon,” her soft vocal designed to counter an oncoming deluge of synthesized intensity that’s about to erupt just around the next corner in the composition. Altman encapsulates the very essence of fun in the spring sun in this sophisticated song, and despite the rather black-and-white construction of the track’s signature hook, I think that it’s one of the more evocative pop singles to debut out of the underground this April.
The bass parts in “Blood Moon” are tightly arranged to cushion the melodic vocal blows and separate the velvety harmonies at the forefront of the mix from the guttural crunch of the drums in the back, and I like the fact that Altman opted to keep them as conservative in tone as she did. This season has produced some of the most excessive basslines that I’ve heard in years, and by going with a different instrumental formula in this song, Jessica Carter Altman distinguishes herself from the vast majority of young pop singers making waves in the United States and abroad at the moment.
Right out of the gate, the EQ on the percussion is as scooped as the string components of a Slayer record would be, and the lack of middle undeniably magnifies the dancefloor energy in the beat. I don’t know that Altman was trying to create a club song with “Blood Moon,” but there’s no getting around how divinely addictive this fiery rhythm is. Resisting the urge to swing when the hook in the chorus comes sliding out of the darkness is just about impossible if you’ve got a living, beating heart in your chest, and that alone makes this track a unique find among the recent output of Altman’s scene.
These synthesizers aren’t nearly as plasticized as some of the others that I’ve heard this spring, and while they don’t come across as surreally as some of the straight-synthpop material that I’ve covered over the season has, they still contribute a certain cerebral texture to the harmonies that wouldn’t have been here otherwise. Though they come close in a few select instances, none of the instrumental elements can steal any of the spotlight away from Jessica Carter Altman’s startlingly elegant vocal, which is at its most unfiltered and vulnerable in this song.
Those who have been following her progress are going to be especially intrigued by this latest addition to the Jessica Carter Altman discography, and personally, I think it’s the most well-rounded content released under her moniker so far. She’s still got some room for growth, but in “Blood Moon,” we’re given an up-close look into the artistry of a young songwriter who is amalgamating a diverse collage of influences into a powerful, unabashedly emotional style of pop. Put simply, if there’s one underground-based musician in the contemporary pop genre that you should be keeping tabs on more than any other this year, it is undisputedly this one.
