Synth Single Review: “Skeletal” by Jana Tyrrell

by Karl Magi

Jana Tyrrell’s “Skeletal” radiates powerful need and vulnerability. The song starts as a roaming melody floats with disconnected tones while computerized notes shift. A massively looming rhythm moves with Jana Tyrrell’s whispering voice, which slowly gains strength as the background reaches with darkly intertwining tendrils.

Jana Tyrrell releases her voice with dreamy shadow as the gigantic beat collides with sharp-edged tones. A guitar trembles with spectral energy as the towering foundation adds even more darkness. As Jana Tyrrell calls out, I am galvanized by the way power rips forth from her voice while the beat shatters.

Bass undulates and Jana Tyrrell’s vocals glide above the threatening power below, as the guitar slashes with elevated strength. The vocals are cut by a minor-key guitar solo that blazes with intense emotion as the hammering beat goes on. A skittering rhythm moves beneath the haunting vocal performance as a synth trickles through the music with contrasting peace. The guitar has a ghostly sensation and a choral sound floats above tremulous notes as silence falls.

Our narrator opens the song saying, “Feed me, until I choke, I’m ready to receive your wisdom.” She wants the song’s subject to strip her down to her bones and “take me, in pieces, wherever you wanna go.” She asks to be given a sign as the other person comes up “through the waves” to show their light to her alone. “She’s running out of time,” so come to me now when the sky’s like fire, as she asks the song’s subject if they’re calling for her.

“Up in the stars there is a paradise where the mind roams free,” and that’s where the storyteller wants to be. She’ll “walk over stones until my soles bleed,” as she promises, “I’m the best of them so please pick me!” To conclude, she says she followed their breadcrumb trail and “deciphered all your codes, purified every part of my soul.”