Austenyo - extended playtime (EP Review)

Austenyo is an up and coming pop artist that's been working on songs for the past three years with this EP marking his first official release. Since its release in April he's put out a music video for his song 'Personova'. He's promised new music although nothing has come out as of now.

3 of the songs on this EP all have a very definite sound and style, using the same synthesizer and similar beats. The first 2 of these sound excellent, with certain amounts of throwback to late 80s minimalistic dance pop, similar to the styles Madonna pursued on her album True Blue. 

'Personova', the single, opens the EP with this vibe and has some really fun production on the beat. Next, 'In My Mind' continues this style but has much more interesting introspective lyrics in an improvised but excellent flow of consciousness. This is definitely my favourite song on the EP and I've kept coming back to it as the year has gone on.

'Piano' is the 3rd song on the EP and the shortest and most different as it incorporates a hip hop beat that fits with the trends in pop music today, it's much more similar to a Drake, Travis Scott or Weeknd song. This is not to discredit it in any way as I really enjoy how fun it is and how well the lyrics fit into the lexical field and theme of a piano, despite the driving force behind the song being that fun and fresh beat.

The final song, 'Coffee', goes back to the original musical style but feels a little bit recycled from the first two songs, the beat being too similar to that on 'Personova' and yet the lyrics definitely lacking from the interesting themes on the previous songs. It is here as well that Austenyo's rudimentary vocals sound their most out of place and hard to listen to.

So overall I'd say this is a very fun EP with simple but fresh beats, interesting lyrics, unique vocals and good personality. I'd love to see Austenyo gain more popularity with future releases, especially since I was his only fan on Deezer just a month ago. If you like his music, definitely follow him as an artist and keep his music in your mind.

Rating 'Extended Playtime' is hard because of my strong feelings towards each song individually but an overall score would be an 8/10. If he started to diversify the instrumentation more in new music I can see myself really loving his material. 

I have to give an individual rating to each song too:

Personova - 8/10

In My Mind - 9/10

Piano - 8.5/10

Coffee - 4/10