Some albums are meant to pump up listeners and some are meant to relax them, but it’s rare to listen to something that is both exciting and calming at the same time. While this seems to be an impossible contradiction, one only needs to listen to Erin Costelo’s We Can Get Over to understand how music can simultaneously thrill your mind and calm your soul. The Halifax-born musician does an outstanding job creating an album that is able to hook on to any emotion and intensify it.
Costelo has said that she has always loved soul and ’60s music, and that is exactly what this album reflects. The instruments and melodies used, along with the traditional ’60s backup singers, make this album a breath of fresh air from more contemporary sounds and allow you to be taken back in time.
The theme of We Can Get Over is love, and all the emotions that come with being a young romantic. This makes the music intensely relatable, because as Costelo puts it, “Everybody wants to be in love.” Some songs, like “Count to 10,” are much more upbeat, but others, like “Too young to be fooled,” slow down and allow the listener to really focus on Costelo’s beautiful lyrics. A certain kind of bounciness is maintained throughout the whole album, giving it that traditional ’60s sound.
Costelo’s remarkable vocals are terrific from the first song onwards, but the best of her superb singing can be heard near the end of the album in the song “Hold me.” In this soulful track, you can feel her passion for her work and her raw talent shines through.
Erin Costelo is living proof of the talent Canadian singers have to offer, and We Can Get Over is easily one of the best albums of the year. Tomas Maturana