Gabriele Filippi
Feb 2021
3 min
1910 views

More than a brilliant infusion of nostalgic beauty – Rob Alexander’s bittersweet blend is an enthralling springboard from which he takes his musicality to an even higher level.

The physician anesthesiologist (MD), who has been writing songs for most of his adult life, amazes one more time by bringing with natural sophistication his warm and inviting voice and his captivating style into a refreshing production of stellar quality.

We had the pleasure of discovering it with “Long Road Coming Home,” with which he brought us back to appreciate the taste for the 80’s Pop / Rock blend. Then came “Being Myself,” the second album with which Rob Alexander further sprouted his stylistic touch into something more personal.

And now, with “Dream Out Loud,” Rob seals what we feel as the first chapter of his evolutionary artistic path, which more than representing a happy ending, shows how this artist is only at the beginning of an exciting progression.

Even without having to reinvent the wheel, Alexander gives us a selection of precious gems with this third album. And soon, Elton John’s epic aura, to which Rob certainly does not hide devotion – give a check to “Friend of Mine (Elton’s Epic),” from Rob’s album “Being Myself” – becomes more of a channeling flux rather than a last standing ovation.

With this album, Alexander seems to have found more than a mere comfort zone in which to bask. “Dream Out Loud” is a sum of conscious instincts represented in song form. If this figurative form does not convey the idea well, it is worth looking at the horizon towards which Rob invites us to turn our gaze.

The title of the album itself helps us to focus the topic, which takes the first steps from what it was, with “Yesterday’s News,” and immediately after takes us by the hand with “Dream Out Loud,” to push us forward, to dream as we live the ups and downs of our lives, present and future.

So while Alexander shows off new mastery, hovering over vocalizations and noteworthy musical phrases, the delivery conducts pragmatism. The added ingredient, the streak of adult contemporary music, generates a certain sort of “libido” that is anything but voyeuristic or fickle.

The album also offers exquisite compositive brackets, masterfully elevated by a mix and mastering that vectorize every single track’s sound to a divine level.

The “miracle”, obviously anything but casual, finds genius in the formidable balance between richness and clean sound. The way in which “Dream Out Loud” conveys in all its fullness the solidity of the founding elements of each song is amazing. While every single note, every single drum hit, every single strummed string, infuse all their harmonics, their nuances, their subtleties into the sound spectrum.

This is an album of pure beauty, which could even stand up in an instrumental version thanks to the undeniably deterministic touch brought by the musicians who collaborated with Rob in the making of this work.

It couldn’t be otherwise as these are members of the Elton John band. So perfectly at home in this sonic glory, Rob Alexander finds the perfect springboard from which to jump to the next pinnacle.

In the mud and shapeless hum of disposable music, this album burns and vibrates like few others, demonstrating how even a livery interwoven with canonical Pop / Rock textures can unfold such new sails, in their theatricality, in their rootedness with our lives.

Here, in the uncertainty of today’s stormy seas, we need new stubborn helmsmen destined to become tomorrow’s captains. And Rob Alexander is just one of them.

Listen now to "Dream Out Loud," the latest Album by Rob Alexander, available in streaming on all major digital platforms. You can find your favorite one via robalexander.hearnow.com/dream-out-loud

To know more about Rob Alexander and his music, find and follow Rob Alexander all over the web by checking the links below:

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You can also discover "Dream Out Loud" and Rob Alexander music by listening to our playlist NOVA ERA, a weekly rotation featuring an eclectic selection of artists covered by Nova MUSIC blog.

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