Pentatonix new album released on iTunes

By Staff Writer: Logan Tesmer

Pentatonix are an a cappella singing group that consists of four guys and one girl, all vocalists and one vocal percussionist. Pentatonix became a musical sensation after winning season three of NBCs singing competition show, The Sing-Off. After winning, they received a recoding contract with Sony and quickly became YouTube famous by their videos of them performing covers of popular hits. They released their first album, PTX Vol. I, in June of 2012 and sold over 20,000 copies in the first week. They also released a Christmas album that November.

The group released their newest album, PTX Vol. II, a few weeks ago and it is everything that you expect from this amazing group of talented vocalists. Let’s start from the beginning of the album

1.  “Can’t Hold Us”

The song is a cover of Macklemore’s single. Pentatonix did a great job with this cover; the way that every vocalist in the song is featured really gives you the sense of how great everyone in the group really is. I’m not a fan of Macklemore or his music, but Pentatonix changed the song, with harmonies and beat-boxing that really gives the song more of a full feeling.

2.  “Natural Disaster”

When the Pentatonix wrote this original song for the group, they didn’t have a recording studio available to them, so the recorded the song each individually then built each track onto each other creating a complete song. I find it brilliant how a song can be this raw and full of percussion, stomps and background vocals can be put together on a phone and still sound amazing.

3.  “Love Again”

This song is another original that they composed as more of a techno-dance club kind of style. It’s definitely not their type of music, but it comes together really well with the minimalistic drops and bass solos putting a true techno feel to the song. I wouldn’t be surprised if this song was played by DJs in clubs soon.

4.  “Valentine”

Valentine is not an original piece; however they approached this cover in a way that was really great. Each of the vocalists has a solo section of the song that tells a story when you really listen to each person telling the story. The song has a great rhythm held together by the beat-boxing. This song is great for Valentines Day; it really has a soft loving sound that just makes you want to listen to it over and over again.

5.  “Hey Momma/Hit the Road Jack”

This song is an original combined with the classic song “Hit the Road Jack.” I think the original part of the song doesn’t fit the classic feel of the other song. The song all together has to be my least favorite on the album. I love listening to “Hit the Road Jack”. It’s really a great cover of that song, and they keep the same swing feel you get from the original version.

6.  “I Need Your Love”

The song “I Need Your Love” by Calvin Harris is such a remix feeling song that just sounds like a girl singing over a keyboard with some techno. The Pentatonix completely changed it, making the song a hip-hop dancing song. At the beginning of the song, the soloist sounds so perfect and the echo behind him just makes for a great intro. They did a great job adding more to the song, like a good bass part and actual percussion, not song computer generated modern day junk.

7.  “Run to You”

Pentatonix wrote this song. It’s a choral piece which is something that they have never done before. The song was recorded in an untraditional way; they didn’t individually sing the song and then splice the tracks together, they all sang at the same time in the studio together, even the beat-boxer sang for the whole song. Everyone in the group was in choir during their high school years and they really moved me when I heard this piece, because I’m a choir boy and this kind of music is what I love; music with perfect harmonies and chord locks that just give you the chills every time you listen to the song. This song is my favorite song on the album and the singing group I am a part of in school, Highlander Chorale, may be covering this piece at the end of this year.

8.  “Daft Punk Medley”

The finale of the album is a medley of the band Daft Punk’s most popular songs. The intro to this song is so amazing, the build the vocals and just keep building and it just makes you want to rewind and listen to it again and again. About a third of the way into the song there is a part where it sounds like it was completely done on a computer, but the group’s just that talented to make the vocals sound so techno that it’s truly brilliant. The medley over all is just so amazing and has so many different songs that require a lot of talent to pull off as an a cappella group.

This album is my favorite album by any artist ever; it has so much variety and the amount of originals on this album really shows how talented the Pentatonix are. You can buy PTX Vol. II on iTunes for $7.99, which includes an extra song call “Save the World/Don’t You Worry”. I highly recommend purchasing any of their albums, because they are truly the greatest a cappella group ever.