Album Review: Tiera EP

Tiera’s music is pure lift-off ⎯ every guitar strum and loose drum patter, every twirling note that the Alabama-born songwriter hits feels weightless and starry-eyed, music that rarely touches the ground. Her self-titled debut EP is an airtight collection of country-pop love-songs, a relentlessly pretty and uncomplicated vision of discovery and head-over-heels delirium.

Producer Cameron Bedell’s touch is deft, and the EP benefits from a reliance on live instrumentation rather than programmed beats and over-processed patches ⎯ it’s refreshing to hear the warm swing of live drums on the billowing chorus of “Found It In You” when so many artists in a similar pop-country bracket would deploy arena-ready drops or synthetic walls of sound. 

The record’s blissfully sunny atmosphere is both a strength ⎯ Tiera is the kind of music that seems to change the aura of a room, so relentless is it in its joy ⎯ and also its biggest weakness, a verging-on-dimensionless sheen that doesn’t reveal much about the writer and performer at its helm. It’s a blessing that the EP is only 5 songs, as it’s unlikely that such sunshine could stretch to album length. Still, it feels more like an offering of Tiera’s preferred mood than an obvious crutch ⎯ she does what she does very well, and the excitement will be in seeing where she takes herself next. 

Tiera EP was released March 12, 2021.
Listen to it here.