LetaLota – Singles

LetaLota – Singles Review

Interesting stuff from LetaLota, based out of Croatia.  From what we can see, they’ve been releasing music onto the internet since late in 2024, when they put out their debut single “Destiny Of Love” towards the end of last year.  As I clicked play and heard the delicate sincerity of the digital piano at the start of their first single, I felt like I could hear the potential in this song right away.  I like the humble melody you hear right from the get-go, but that tiny fragment of their song will quickly dissipate, morph, and change into a much larger idea overall.  To be truthful, I wasn’t entirely sure about Ivana’s vocals when “Destiny Of Love” started…like that very first line of the song seemed like it almost caught her off guard for a brief moment, but she rebounds seriously fast, and by the very next line in “Destiny Of Love” seems to already be settled in with the confidence that’ll go on to fuel the rest of her performance.  In the grand scheme of things, that’s not bad at all, especially when you consider that this cut is LetaLota’s debut single, right?  There should be multiple spots where we’d be able to hear their newness as a band, but they seem like they’ve really been able to minimize that and present their professionalism as ready to roll from this moment forward.  “Destiny Of Love” might appear to be a low-key energy song at first, but I can guarantee ya that this song will go on to twist and contort itself into something that sounds much different than you probably assumed it would at the very beginning.  Ivana’s vocals continue to strengthen as she sings throughout the song, to the point where she’s practically singing a Rock Opera of sorts on the very first track that any of us had even heard her voice – and you gotta admit, regardless of what you might think of the song for your own personal taste, it’s super impressive to be able to reveal this much ambition and range in a debut.  As for the music, which is largely handled by Vedat in LetaLota if I understand the situation correctly, also stands out for multiple reasons.  It’s decked out with clever details though, and from what I have read, Vedat made a massive effort to teach himself the tools they needed to do their own production in LetaLota.  You know I’ve got love for those out there that want to go their own way and do things the way they’d naturally do them without some music label trying to steer them in a different direction, so full salute to LetaLota for taking charge of their own destiny.  I’m personally really happy with all that I hear on “Destiny Of Love” and didn’t think there was much that I’d even dare to change mix-wise.  I love the definition of the bass, I think the guitar sounds great, and the drums, which can often be the hardest element to mix at the start of learning production, came out sounding really good too.  Everything’s sitting in the right place, and the additional details added in along the way do a lot to enhance the cinematic sound that they’re looking to create.  Plus, that guitar solo!  C’mon y’all…that sounds awesome, right?  I’ll be honest and say that I still went a little back and forth about how I felt about “Destiny Of Love” because it’s a little outside of my own personal taste and what I usually listen to, but if I’m being objective, there’s not a doubt in my mind that they did an excellent job with this first offering.  Hearing Ivana hit the main hooks of her vocals with such power and gripping tone in the chorus of “Destiny Of Love” was continually convincing, and the more I heard her sing at the most intense moments of this song, the more I was convinced of LetaLota’s greater potential.

I probably liked the beginning of “Hold Me” even more.  Strangely, it really reminded me of like…is it the Cranberries?  It might be.  Might be “Zombie” and how the melodic progression works in the most subtle moments of that song.  I’ve got a lot of tunes stored up in my head, so it could be that.  It also kind of reminds me of music that I hear in my old man’s band Stone Poets as well, especially considering that Ivana often reminds me of Cherelle Jardine in the way each singer approaches their songwriting.  I’ll say this though – I think there’s a noticeable difference between what might attract listeners to a song like “Destiny Of Love” versus what they’ll hear in “Hold Me.”  That’s not me necessarily saying that “Hold Me” is a bad song by any measure, that’s more of a comment on how much there is within each track.  There are some great things about “Hold Me” as well of course, but it does feel like it’s a little bit less of a song than what we experienced with “Destiny Of Love” and all that it came with.  This second single becomes a bit more restrained and contained into a fairly even sound across the board, where the chorus doesn’t really take this track too much further beyond the vibes already established within the verses, make sense?  So it’s like…a tremendous display of balance within the band that almost works against them a little bit, because they trade a tightly controlled sound for some of those remarkable dynamics that made a song like “Destiny Of Love” as compelling as it became.  The overall atmosphere and mood in a track like “Hold Me” is much more likely to remind you of the kind of material you would find in a band like Cowboy Junkies.  That’s another great band, but one that’s also very mood dependent as well…like you probably wouldn’t put on Cowboy Junkies on your happiest of days so much as you’d put it on when you’re in the throes of emotional despair, you know what I mean?  My gut tells me that there’s just a little bit less to wrap our minds around here…that “Hold Me” is a little more ordinary when you compare it to a track like “Destiny Of Love” that has such significant dynamics on display.  Of all the ingredients to “Hold Me” that I felt like I enjoyed most, it was really the additional backing vocals that you hear right towards the end of the first minute that made the biggest impact on me as a listener, and I was pleased to hear them essentially continue throughout the rest of the song to follow.  I really love where they sit in the mix…sometimes they have a larger presence, like what you’ll hear the first time you really notice them in this song, but at other times, they serve brilliantly to further guide the melody and complement the sound as they shift the backing vocals to a more distant space in the song.  I guess to be fair, those backing vocals really are present throughout the bulk of the entire track, but you’ll know what I mean when you hear Ivana’s vocals at the end of the first minute and how the extra space surrounding her in the song really lets them make an extraordinary impact between like 0:55 – 1:05.  It’s a short moment, but a real highlight overall, and I kinda wish we got to spend a bit more of our time with Ivana singing like that in the lead, because what she’s doing in the background is fascinating.  What she goes on to sing in English kind of makes “Hold Me” into a fairly typical tune, with perhaps the exception of where she sings “be brave,” which is another stellar highlight in this song.  So…ultimately, it just depends on what the goals are for LetaLota, but in listening to a track like “Hold Me,” I think you can hear two major avenues for their sound.  If they wanted to, they could go the route of easy ballads and low-key drama that has been explored in countless ways, or they could take the road less traveled, into places like how experimental art-rock songs like “The Great Gig In The Sky” had us all truly mesmerized.

It’s always tough to know how you want to define your sound as you step into the spotlight, and more often than not, what you think you need at the start of a career will go on to change several times over the years that follow.  LetaLota has options, and that’s always a good thing, right?  I like the more artistically ambitious sound of a song like “Destiny Of Love,” but others will like the more predictable design of something like “Hold Me” I’m sure.  As for their third single, “Nobody To Blame,” I’d say that this track kind of meets what we liked about the first two tracks in the middle.  Here’s what I would recommend that LetaLota keeps a sharp focus on overall – the spark.  I think they really need to be able to pinpoint that specific part or couple of parts in a song that are irresistible and guaranteed to keep people coming back for another listen.  I feel like “Destiny Of Love” had at least a couple of those moments on display, but the unbreakable evenness and stoic balance of “Hold Me” and “Nobody To Blame” are much tougher to argue that they raise our pulse or that dopamine hit we love to receive through the music we listen to.  Again, the absence of that doesn’t make them bad songs, but it does tend to stack the odds against being listened to.  Dynamics are super important to include, and when they’re threaded into a song too subtly, it can take away that excitement & desire to hear a song, even when it’s still performed really well, like you’ll hear on “Nobody To Blame.”  I’ve got no major issues with the way the band sounds or the way they perform, but I do think there’s plenty of space for them to continue to evolve & refine their craft to make the material they’re creating even more engaging than it is right now.  Which is fair, right?  Every band or artist on the inside of their first five years should only hope they’ve got substantial room to grow, otherwise believe me when I tell ya, they’ll lost interest in what they’re doing pretty quickly.  We all want to know where we can do things even better than we do at the start and be able to measure our growth.  These three songs all prove and confirm that Ivana and Vedat have all the right tools they need to write, perform, and produce their own music, and from here on in, it’s all about connecting even more to the sound they want to create & unleashing their potential.

We’ve got a short interview planned with LetaLota for our podcast later this month, so make sure to tune in to that, and in the meantime, find out more about LetaLota from their official page at Facebook here:  https://www.facebook.com/LetaLotaPage

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