Houston-based artist Lona. delivers his brand new album ‘Heart of the Summer.’ At 20-songs in length, the body of work has a runtime of 46-minutes and Lona takes advantage of each second.
In its entirety, the album is pretty seamless with amazing instrumentals, good flows, stellar features, and entertaining for the most part. With production from Dion Crysis, BROADDAY, Backyard Bleux, CEDES, and No Salez, ‘Heart of the Summer‘ brings together some really hard-hitting production qualities. The best examples of these moments, in my opinion, can be heard on the tracks ‘Alot‘, ‘Midas‘, ‘Big Papi‘, and the album’s title. Lona’s delivery throughout this album was also something that I was quite pleased with. Something that impressed me as a listener was his cadence/vocal ability which came across as really engaging and smooth to me in relation to the tracks in which he was doing this on.
On the feature end of things, Kennyraccs, Nayome, and Law come through and assist Lona on tracks like ‘The Bounce Bacc‘, ‘Right Back Down‘, and ‘Gonna Be.’ The songs on here remain quick and short in terms of their duration. While I like the idea of these songs getting to the point and not dragging on for an extended amount of time, there were easily some tracks that I would have loved to see expanded or more of, for an extra 1-2 minutes.
“This is probably my most organic project in a minute. I didn’t come in with a concept or a story. I just made the music,” said Lona in an email to SL about how the album came together. “I feel like my last album was more melancholy and conceptual. With this one, the tone is brighter and it’s more of a collection of songs. I wanted to show a different side of myself and craft.” Overall, the album delivers a rare and unique atmosphere that we really don’t see too often. If you’re currently unfamiliar with Lona, this project is the perfect place to start. Stream the new album down below via Spotify and head over here for your preferred streaming services.
