If Tash Hagz doesn’t ring a bell, just ponder it long enough and it will. The alter image of Mike Shields can always vouch for his own creation and that says enough about it if you’re not keen on his dry British sense of humor. There is a lot of acronym’s flying around on the internet, and it should be too hard to dispel this one. “Images of Imogen” is where the playfulness and seriousness of this brilliant songwriter meet and pass over my radar with flying colors. Everything about it passes the stress test for today’s folk balanced alternative rock.
REVERBNATION: www.reverbnation.com/tashhagz
If I didn’t like the blends of country and folk in with rock and pop, I’d find something else to write about, and it gets even better for me when it’s done by a British artist, because they tend to magnify a good thing, and Shields is no exception to that rule. Even if I am very picky about it, they just tend to float my boat a lot more than others and maybe there is no explanation for it and they’re just better. I think “Images of Imogen” cleans up in every way, so it must be a combination of things.
As the piano starts you know it’s a ballad, but once the vocals come in you can also taste the pop sensibilities and it quickly takes over your senses and keeps you there for the duration of the song. The breaks help after the tempo dives and magically picks back up, as the voice swirl around the music with melodic passion. The track really gets under your skin and takes you for a Calgon excursion with soothing musical passages and melancholy vocals. You could even say it comes from a place not heard since the early 90s.
Images Of Imogen – Tash Hagz (Official Music Video)
It’s in! Beautiful, haunting sure-fire authentic alt-rock track – just arrived! I don’t know about you. But I guess I’m a bit different from most people. Wel…
What “Images of Imogen” is not is boring or unimaginative, it’s the complete opposite for a slow ballad with a sense of romance and mystery to it. It’s radio friendly and accessible without being a commercially driven statement or clinical piece of music. The focus winds up being on the song more than Tash Hagz or what that means, but you can’t help being intrigued by it once you’re into it. If it were hard, there’s be nothing to write home about, it’s easy to process and anyone can enjoy it. That means any age group or lover of any genre.
When Tash Hagz sits down to the piano and the video starts rolling, it’s another way to hear the song, and the way it turns out does not disappoint. In fact, it took me back to hear it over again without watching because it added that much appeal. This is a first rate song by a first rate artist in a vast sea of indie talent to go around during a global pandemic, and it helps get through it if music is your medicine, and if you’re reading this it probably is. “Images of Imogen” offers the right solution for all the right reasons.
Clay Burton