Richard Rhys Obrien – ‘Sense in our Brains’

Richard Rhys Obrien seeks to open our eyes to the destructive nature of our history in his new single ‘Sense in our Brains’.

You can hear in his song writing style and his singing that he’s influenced by the like of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed. His song is treated more like an epic story that he’s telling us as opposed to a song. The focus is his message; the music is tailored to his voice and the urgency of what he’s saying. He sings about the destructive cycle of human development, building things up just to destroy each other in the end, and questions if this is what we will always do. His style has folky roots and is all about sharing his tales with others. The band fits in perfectly with this style, each part complimenting his singing and playing a key part in the songs foundations.

The piano is composed of simple melodies and chord progressions and is the basic foundations of songs construction. The rest is an embellishment of this, the drums and bass being the strong but subtle backbone of the song. There’s an acoustic guitar reinforcing the chord progression and keeping true to the more folky feel of his style. This is coloured with some fantastic and tasteful lead guitar work, which compliment his voice and turn the song into an epic journey, captivating you. This is made even grander with the mixture of organ and choral like backing vocals which gives him an almost heroic messenger kind of vibe.