TOP NEW INDIE: FREYA RIDINGS - MAPS

This is Ken from We Are: The Guard ready for another week of new music. London singer-songwriter Freya Ridings just released her interpretation of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s most famous hit, "Maps." This cover invokes a different feeling from the original. How so, you might ask? Please read on.

FREYA RIDINGS - MAPS

Upon first impressions, Freya Ridings is still babyfaced and just escaping the clutches of adolescence. Barely 22-years-old, the British singer just found traction with her very hearty cover of "Maps," one of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s most well-known tracks from over a decade ago. Riding’s fully-acoustic interpretation invokes a totally different type of emotion through her powerful vibrato. The hair on the back of your neck stands up and your body tingles. Her vocals sound comparable to Florence Welch, perhaps, without all of the theatrics. Maps is a straightforward, no-nonsense voice and piano track, plain and simple.

Compared to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this version is in its own category and genre with much more angst and emotion delivered in a sultry and full-bodied voice. Definitely, it is a different and welcome approach to a classic song, if you can call something released in the 2000s classic. Today, I just heard Coldplay on the local oldies station. So, anything is possible. But I digress. Though her vocals sound a little foggy at times, struggling to enunciate certain words, it is an enjoyable one filled with power and gusto. Recommended.