New Vibrations: Josh Groban

Despite Illuminations being Josh Groban’s fifth album to date, the magic that hooked his audience from his first album has not faded.

Groban, as usual, manages to blend the traditional classical style singing with more modern pop songs and coming out with another spectacular album full of rich orchestration background and Groban’s lush, full voice blasting from the speakers.

He chooses to begin the album with a purely instrumental piece, “The Wandering Kind (Prelude).”

This light-hearted piece sets the mood for the rest of the album and illustrates the title of the album. By using a lot of the same motifs over and over, he illuminates them in the album.

It ends extremely suddenly, which is quite jarring, but then goes straight into “Bells of New York City,” which is one of the best tracks in the album.

Groban sings about the “pale winter moon in the sky coming through [his] window,” and the music illustrates the “ghosts of many lifetimes all [abounding].” Without needing any images, this song and Groban’s voice tells a story of a lonely winter in New York City.

Of course, no Josh Groban album would be complete without a few songs in different languages, and in this album, there’s the sweeping “L’Ora Dell’Addio,” sung in Italian, the lullaby-esque French song “Au Jardin Des Sans-Pourquoi” and the grand “Voce Existe Em Mim,” which is in Portuguese.

The vocals on these songs are some of the best from Groban, showing that Groban is just as comfortable performing in foreign languages as he does in English.

Each piece is polished and brings a variety of different styles to the album. That isn’t to say that his English pieces aren’t worth speaking of.

On the contrary, many of his English pieces seem to have been made for him to sing while standing on the top of a mountain, especially “If I Walk Away.”

The power behind his voice is incredible and makes his listeners feel dwarfed, but mostly awed at how he can make his voice soar over the instrumental background.

He is one of those singers who can do just about anything, from quiet and peaceful crooning to all-out belting so controlled that one can only marvel at how he manages to achieve it.

Illuminations ends on a more tempered note with “Straight to You.” While there is nothing with his voice and with the music, it feels like he is holding back from his full potential on this song, leaving the audience feeling a little let down.

From such a wonderful album, listeners probably expect a grander ending, and the fact that it’s technically a more “boring” track may mean that listeners, especially first-time listeners of Groban, don’t come away with the full experience of listening to his music.

The other tracks on the album, though, are wonderful, each having their own special quality, but each one with a soaring orchestra and Groban’s rich voice that have become his trademark in every one of his albums.

Illuminations is an album that leaves audiences wanting more from him, as he has never failed to deliver a spectacular performance.

He puts his entire heart and voice into the album, and it is only too obvious, once you’ve heard even just the first piece in Illuminations.

In this album, Groban is passionate, poetic, tender, but most importantly, honest.

Some of these songs are extremely personal, especially “Love Only Knows,” “Straight to You,” and “If I Walk Away.”

The songs may have been well written and emotional in themselves, but Groban is the heart and soul of Illuminations.