Someone Is Waiting
William Wei

Same Species #2
Nylon Chen

Awkward
Kit Teo

Someone is waiting all right.
After releasing a lovely eponymous debut in 2010, Taiwanese singer-songwriter William Wei went off to fulfil his military obligations.
Which means it has been a long wait for the follow-up album from the Golden Melody Award winner for Best New Artist last year.
The accompanying DVD here is a making-of documentary and in it, Wei clearly states his musical direction: He wants to do popular music while realising that the challenge is to do so without being hackneyed or trite.
He succeeds to a large extent.
Moon offers an unusual and out-of- this-world take on heartbreak: “Beneath the moon is my splintered heart/The surface of the moon is where my blood is shed.”
Even when the lyrics are more straightforward as on the gently groovy Tired and the spare Heart Drunk Heart Broken, his evocative singing conveys the emotions convincingly.
We’ll Never Know and Still Get end the album on a poignant note. “We’ll never know the answer/Cause you never chose that choice” is a musing on the road not taken, while Still Get is about the fragility of happiness: “Still get scared/I won’t be by your side when I wake/Scared, won’t ever be next to you”.
In contrast, Taiwanese singer-actor Nylon Chen’s second album, Same Species #2, fails to make much of an impact as neither his voice nor the material is particularly distinctive or memorable.
The lyrics by the singer-songwriter can be rather prosaic as well.
He declares on Just Wish To Embrace You: “I wish to embrace you like this, okay? Okay?/Tightly embrace, no matter how hot it gets”.
Mostly, the love songs sound generic and the sentiment, well, hackneyed.
Malaysia’s Kit Teo does a much better job with the love ballads on the EP Awkward.
At times reminiscent of a less husky-sounding A-do, he is also able to write tunes with a sweeping romanticism to them.
It all comes together on Love Spreads Like An Epidemic: “Love spreads like an epidemic/Would rather be infected than be alone”.
And it was a treat having Taiwanese singer Julia Peng guest on the duet Curved Moon.
She has been rather quiet of late on the music front but her crystal-clear voice sounds as good as ever.
Really, the only thing awkward about this EP is the odd title.
(ST)