{"id":29476,"date":"2025-05-31T05:30:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29476"},"modified":"2025-06-03T15:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T19:35:51","slug":"ep-review-pol-sembrano-anywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/31\/ep-review-pol-sembrano-anywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Pol Sembrano \u2013 Anywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29477\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pol-sembrano.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pol-sembrano.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pol-sembrano-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pol-sembrano-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Some years ago, there was a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live featuring two dudes in the then-modern-day equivalent of sharkskin suits, clubbing in NYC. They even made a movie out of it, the critically-savaged <i>A Night at the Roxbury<\/i>. The musical backdrop to the sketch was Haddaway\u2019s 1993 hit \u201cWhat is Love.\u201d The repetitive character of that song was a feature not a bug; when you\u2019re dancing, it\u2019s \u2013 so I am reliably informed \u2013 not about the words. It\u2019s about the beat.<\/p>\n<p>I am reminded of that song as I spin \u201cAnywhere,\u201d the opening cut on Pol Sembrano\u2019s new EP of the same name. Icy synthesizer sequences, programmed drum beats, robotic handclaps\u2026 they\u2019re all here in great quantity and prominence. But \u201cAnywhere\u201d has something going for it: the melody is strong, and Sembrano\u2019s vocals are largely free from the over-processing so endemic to much in the dancepop world. His melodic sense is strong, and there\u2019s a fun and inviting character to the song that sets it apart from standard-issue vapid and zipless dancefloor ravers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpen Mind\u201d is even better, with its moody feel. Combining shades of Depeche Mode, The Cure and Until December, the tune makes use of electronic instrumentation, yet it gives the sense that the artist delivering it has actual blood flowing through his veins. And \u201cNumber\u201d takes a delightful left run, crafting a slinky pop melody that uses the same tools to create a very different ambiance. Sembrano\u2019s rich and approachable vocals make it plain that there\u2019s much more to this Filipino-American artist than kinetic dance tunes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing to Say\u2019 finds Sembrano back on the dancefloor, but his skill with a melody means that the tunes are well differentiated from one another, BPMs be damned. Word on the street is that the <i>Anywhere<\/i> EP is a preview of what\u2019s to come on a planned full-length. Fans of intelligent dancepop (not an oxymoron; really!) are advised to stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some years ago, there was a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live featuring two dudes in the then-modern-day equivalent of sharkskin suits, clubbing in NYC. They even made a movie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3505,26,49,65],"tags":[5693],"class_list":["post-29476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-electronica","category-new-release","category-review","tag-pol-sembrano","cat-3505-id","cat-26-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29476"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29530,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476\/revisions\/29530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}