iRO Delivered the Full Cinema of Heartache in His Indie-Folk-Pop Ballad, ‘Lonely’

Some musicians create music videos to dress their singles, true artists capture the full cinema of their sound, and iRO proved himself firmly in the latter camp with Lonely. In this folk-leaning, orchestrally scored indie piano pop ballad, the weight of loss and isolation gnaws until the soul is as raw as the emotion swelling through the diaphanous crescendos. What begins with the quiet introspection of a track fit for a Joni Mitchell-centred playlist builds into a gospel-esque sermon, steeped in the seraphic intensity that brings to mind Hozier while carrying the absolving tenderness of Michael Kiwanuka. Lonely triumphs not by grandiosity but by its fragility; its confessional lyricism bleeds into visceralism, while the melancholy of the melodies consumes the spaces words cannot reach. It is the kind of ballad that caresses as it devastates, holding its listeners in a state of stillness where loss becomes strangely redemptive. Behind the moniker iRO is Ori Rakib, the NYC-based singer-songwriter and poet who has shared stages at Coachella and Tomorrowland with Macklemore and Alok, yet remains as comfortable in stripped-down subway station performances as in front of festival crowds. With his debut album White Roses, he now presents his art in its […]

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