There’s been large growth in the indie folk rock genre over the past couple years. More artists are emerging and offering their own perspective on the genre. Meaningful Stone has been releasing singles since 2017, but A Call from My Dream is her first full length. The 11 track album is full of strong songs offering listeners a fun and enjoyable experience.
If indie folk isn’t your style of choice, I still recommend giving Meaningful Stone a try. It’s a full band experience with well composed and arranged tracks. She’s also not scared of experimenting and adding elements of other genres into her music. “A Call from My Dream” is a warm welcome into the album complete with slide guitar and strings mixed with a heavy layering of melodies. It can sound simple until it jumps into a broader sound.
It’s a strong single and displays a lot of talent. “Nameless” is slightly more paired back but continues to offer a wide instrumental sound. From guitar to keyboards, each instrument highlights one section of the melody with Meaningful Stone’s warm vocals moving throughout the song.
She’s also able to change styles, like on “Butterfly dust,” which is more low key indie. A synth keyboard follows an electric guitar and the vocals. It gives people a chance to take a small break. She even goes a little synth pop with “Ah,” adding a bit of variety and “Treasure hunt” meeting the pop music border. Even though the music changes, Meaningful Stone’s vocals are able to easily conform to the style of choice.
“Footsteps” might be my favorite track because it’s like a layering of folk and indie pop rock on top of each other. Rather than a combination or translation, it sounds like the two styles are sat on top of one each other and easily communicating with each other seamlessly. The back end of the album even goes into other genres like R&B-light and jazz club styles.
Meaningful Stone offers a wide landscape of styles within her full length. What starts as a folk and indie folk album expands into something much broader and shows off a lot of versatility and variety. If this is the start of her growing career, she’s set an amazing foundation.
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Chris P
Korean Indie owner and Editor at Large. Constantly looking for new music and working on library parity on Spotify and YouTube Music.