Testify, the new EP from Emilio Basa hit the desk the other day and I’m here to tell you the Detroit rocker is on fire! He’s been compared to Dave Matthews or Jack Johnson, but to be honest, I swear the kid reminds me of some BTO or Neil Young at times – but with a E-Street Band kinda thing behind him.

I got into this cat pretty quick with the first track I heard, “Broken Halo,” and little things that accentuated the great lyric and vocal, like the cool piano part and the really clean and punchy acoustic guitar mixed with the electrics. But then there’s this really cool loop and delay vocal and rhythm thing at the end that comes out of left field and but has a mesmerizing effect – Boom!

Getting over to his site, this Middle Tennessee Music lover found a couple things that really got my attention:

WHO AM I?
“I’m an independent singer songwriter. Independent means I have no label, manager, promoter, booking agent, etc.. I do everything myself. I’m working hard everyday trying to get those things because let’s face it…you can’t do it all yourself.” (Bang!) from “about me”

On “My First Trip to Nashville…”

“I’m definitely going back to Nashville. That city sucked me in with their kindness and great music. It’s hard to resist a city like that. It was clean. People were friendly and there’s good music everywhere. If you haven’t gone yet then stop waiting on go already!” (Pow!)

The smooth but moving tempos and rhythms coupled with the vocals and arrangements in songs like “Cannonball” and “Hanging Heart” were just the bomb for driving through the snow in Ohio, yesterday. Witht the bits of freezing rain and the white-out wash of mist and snow, it was like a trip through another world, and Basa’s tunes provided the soundtrack that kept us on track!