Critic's evaluation
Three years after launching onto the national music market with Aqui E Agora, his debut album, Fael from Rio Grande do Sul returns to the studio to write a new chapter in his career. Entitled Questão De Tempo, the EP was born from the combination of tracks composed since 2010.
It's like feeling the scent of flowers floating through the evaporation of dew as they meet the first rays of sunlight at dawn.The horizon, although enigmatic due to its gradual revelation, gives off an air of grandeur and infinitude. Its peculiar grandeur and beauty leaves the listener in the pose of an omnipresent being, just revering life as it awakens to a new adventure.Curiously, the sweetness provided by the sharp, gentle sound of the synthesizer bears an energetic resemblance to the melody exhorted by Mark Tremonti's guitar at dawn in Ghost Of Days Gone By, a single by Alter Bridge. Along with it, a voice with an equally sweet timbre and refinements of kindness and politeness begins to fill out the lyrical line. It's Fael giving, transforming the song into a motivational product aimed at overcoming. Although in its first introductory phase, Setembro already shows a remarkable extrasensory maturity, because with the entry of Cezar Tortorelli's guitar, whose riff offers a lovely feeling of joy, it turns into something deeply solar. With a delicate bed brought by the piano's rhythmic notes, the song is also graced by the touching sonar overflight of violins that parade compassion in the atmosphere and the subtlety with which the guitar appears, amplifying the harmony. It's not surprising, then, that Setembro is almost like an ode to the individual's visceral ability to face their pain and overcome their afflictions. Seeing tomorrow as an opportunity to start over is not easy, which is why the protagonist's attitude is admirable. After all, he finds fulfillment in understanding that suffering leads nowhere. Setembro is definitely the motivation the viewer needed to understand that life deserves a second chance.
A sweetly acidic sonar introduces the listener to an atmosphere that smells of new wave. Between the fluttering vocal verses and the subtly harsh guitar, the 4x4 beat attracts attention with its speed, which, although not as fast, presents an interesting counterpoint to the initial lyrical tone. Surprisingly, at the end of the first verse, the singer is only accompanied by the beat and the bass, which, under the command of Giancarlo Gaudio, takes on a notable leading role.With a dry but subtly rough groove, the instrument is responsible for bringing a more organic element to the song and also bringing the listener back to their senses. Growing in excitement through the short, rough guitar riffs, Pelas Ruas repeats the metric of the previous song by developing harmonically in the chorus with the insertion of keyboard sonars. Contagious and denotatively attractive, the song has a lyrical plot whose essence is a linear continuation of that present in September. After all, here the protagonist is still dealing with getting over himself, but he's searching, through visits to significant places in the past, for an end to the sense of guilt over something that led to the break-up of a certain relationship. No wonder that, after this realization, the character sounds lighter and with a more serene mind while in contact with the memories of yesterday.
A new guise is presented. Only voice and guitar play the role of structuring the initial melody. Between chords of a melancholic sweetness and a vocal whose timbre now sounds more fanatical and bets on experimenting with falsetto, the song gradually grows from vocal overlays that take it to its apex. Bursting forth in a moment of softness and a mixture of nostalgia and melancholy, the title track brings time to life as a real and tactile character, just as Allan Loeb did in the script for the feature film Collateral Beauty.In this song, therefore, the noun takes on the role of protagonist by being it, a mythical and omnipresent individual, the lord of destiny and, for the context of the song, the accelerator of ageing. In the title track, the supporting character discovers that he has lived superficially and lost himself at some point to the point where he no longer knows who he is. In the process, the listener ends up convalescing and feeling represented, too, by the suffering of this character. After all, when time passes, nostalgia for times of splendid joy and plenitude can cause pain in the heart, but pain is also a feeling that strengthens the soul. That's why time, even though it is also a foreman, in Fael's own words, is also the lord of wisdom.
She's sweet and gentle, but there's also the impression that there's a feeling of disappointment inside her that's been held back for a long time. Her tempo is serene, but densely melancholic, even though it manages to infect the listener with its easy-to-swallow movement. Not only because of its minimalism, but also because of the way Fael's voice is pronounced, the song takes on a folk feel, whose sensitivity transcends the melody and takes the listener to backwoods locations with a largely bucolic energy. In the structure of a reflective-melancholic ballad, São Tomé presents a character who is plunged into disappointment with his faith and who, as a result, is absent of any omnipresent foundation that can comfort and warm him in times of pain.With exquisite anger and even disgust, the character still questions whether he deserves the help of a mythical religious figure. That's why he turns out to be a skeptical being, dominated only by reason and therefore denying his sentimental side.
It has a strangely touching harmony. Drawing a reenergizing landscape of hope on the horizon, the introduction moves on to a delicate, sweet and gentle verse, governed only by voice and keyboard. Curiously similar in a very subtle way to the melody of Como Eu Quero, a single by Kid Abelha, Eu Não Nasci Para Ser Herói features a character giving importance to feelings and regretting not being able to be stronger than the pain, even though dawn brings the opportunity to start again. Also bearing a simple aesthetic resemblance to Sail Away, a single by Armored Dawn, Eu Não Nasci Para Ser Herói is still full of mixed feelings of agony and anguish experienced by the protagonist, who finds himself disappointed in himself for not meeting other people's expectations of him. That's when the song comes as an ultimatum: either the character clings to his own strength to overcome his pain, or he lets himself sink into the comfort zone of suffering and gradually erases himself from life.
It's like watching the rain from inside your bedroom. Kneeling on the bed and leaning on the window frame, the image of the water from the heavens, falling beyond the infinite horizon, is blurred by the volume of tears that flow from the suffering man's downcast and tired eyes. The gray sky, the weather and the colors of the wet landscape amplify the feelings of melancholy that plague the character. When he looks over, the pillow is positioned in the middle of the mattress. As soon as he picks it up, the impulse is to give him a strong, tight hug, which, without guilt or any kind of control, causes the crying to take on an uncontrolled life, moistening everything from his cheeks to the pillowcase. Although the piano notes have a linear, undulating sequence, when accompanied by the guitar it makes the melody even more touching and gentle. With a subtle guitar and the insertion of violin sonars that serve as veils spiritually enveloping the suffering soul, Cosmonauta is a reflective and mythical song that represents the desire to return to places and moments devoid of worry or even pain. It's in this track that Fael also explores biblical concepts about the origin and future of humanity, counterpointing, not abruptly, the exorbitant skepticism present in São Tomé.
It's an extrasensory EP. Gentle, delicate, polite, sweet and compassionate, Questão De Tempo invites the listener to immerse themselves, along with the characters, in environments and scenarios that offer reflections on life, pain and love. At times motivational, the material has, at its core, a motivational character that seeks to make the listener realize and understand their own feelings.
The product doesn't just lead the viewer to discuss the theoretical part. After all, each melody delicately offered was able to give the practical lesson of its teachings without even having to make the listener get up from their seat or take off their headphones and go in a random direction. No. As a first big step, the EP showed that respecting and understanding pain is the beginning of the road to true overcoming.
Through a parade of mixed feelings of nostalgia, melancholy, disappointment and guilt, Questão De Tempo taught that joy alone cannot make an individual grow. They need sadness to make them value what they have and what they don't have. To make you understand that no one is the master of destiny and that time takes its course, leaving you with the conscience or the guilt for making the best of it, or for not making the best of it.
Mixed by Leonardo Braga, the EP moves through genres that are sometimes disconnected, but which, knowing how well they work, complement each other in offering sensations that are intimately linked to each of the six different storylines presented. In this process, the listener perceives indie, folk, new wave and psychedelia together in the mission to make the material's teaching count.
As well as being well-balanced, the EP, now thanks to Tortorelli's contribution to the production, has managed to show and highlight Fael's maturity in terms of composition. A growth that has given him the courage to relive the past and put his inner conflicts into melodies that speak for themselves and that, consequently, end up representing the same chaos of many people around the world. After all, regardless of their character, everyone has a heart.
Closing the technical part is the cover art. Also signed by Fael, it consists of a mandala that highlights the infinity symbol, as a perfect description of the continuity of life. Filled with colors in mystical, pastel and warm tones, the work is divided as if to indicate yesterday and tomorrow. And in between them, written verses taken from the songs on the EP metaphorize the lessons and insights gained from giving voice to sensitivity.
Released on 01/18/2024 in an independent way, Questão De Tempo brings tears to your eyes at various moments. The EP is a lesson in spiritual growth and overcoming, even though it goes through acid moments of pure skepticism. Motivational, it is a sweet and generous product, whose inner goodness wants to see the individual fulfilled, free from suffering and always grateful for the various sunrises in the infinite dawns that life will still offer.
