Review By Vince Leigh
Sebastian Coe got his first break when he was eight, appearing on The Voice Kids Australia. We all know the double-edged nature of early fame—or if not early fame then early exposure—and what it can do to naturally gifted artists; render them obsolete or embolden their undaunted ambitions.
It seems Sebastian is part of the latter group. And his new track, Me, conveniently illustrates this point despite its generalised focus.
It’s a finely-crafted ballad whose melodic flights and dips and turns and suspensions provide a suitable musical mirror to the vulnerable reflections outlined in the lyric.
And Sebastian does a great job here, going from the tender openness of the verses to the persuasive pulsations of the chorus with ease, confidence, and a strident grasp of the tenacious yet questioning nature of the chorus’ subjectivity.
The instrumentation is kept to a minimum, piano and strings, and this barebones combination works, amplifying Sebastian’s resonances, and in turn the lyric, to a level that encourages a clear understanding of the disclosures.
There’s no attempt to fit into any current pop mould on this record, and that’s laudable; it is a song cut from the same cloth as the archetypal kinds featured in musicals, a form that has evolved to suit the times without bowing down to it.
If I delve deeper into the structure of Me, I would find that all parts are satisfying, helped along by an arrangement that makes the best use of these sections. This stated, the cyclical nature of the chorus with its false peaks does have a sense of muted surprise, restricting its ability to provide a conclusive melodic climax.
Nonetheless, the track operates very smoothly on many levels, the most persuasive being Sebastian’s effortless command of its dynamism.
