Written by: Liam Smith
I recall the brief chuckle and well wishes from Elijah Polance, a friend and fellow editor at Long River Review, in response to my desire to analyze Cameron Winter’s vocal style. As a self-admitted superfan of Winter’s discography, I acknowledge the difficulty of capturing his magical and layered technique.
On my first listen through his 2024 solo debut, Heavy Metal, I was equally fascinated and confused by the album’s vocal performances. While the delivery of his lyrics feels soft and laid-back, his tone fluctuates through a grating dissonance with the instrumentals. This was unlike my previous experience with the modern indie-folk genre that Winter captures on the album – I am more accustomed to the whispered stylings of Adrianne Lenker or Sufjan Stevens. Heavy Metal seems to reject these vocal conventions; instead, Winter pulls his voice through melody lines to explore a more instrument-like style of singing.
This piece will not pass judgement on Winter’s vocal abilities – I am an underqualified judge of vocal talent, and, more importantly, talent seems irrelevant to my major purpose. Rather, I aim to use the song “Cancer of the Skull” to consider how Winter’s instrument-like vocal style on Heavy Metal contributes to the atmosphere of the songs, and why his style feels equally fresh and timeless.
Over the swelling chorus of “Cancer of the Skull,” Winter drawls the line, “These songs are meant for bad singers.” Winter’s vocal performance on the song blends the punk-ish talk-singing of Lou Reed with the operatic, if slightly warbled falsetto of Thom Yorke. The result is, without a doubt, unclean – Winter’s timbre frequently wanders off key, to the extent of sounding occasionally out-of-tune.
For “Cancer of the Skull,” though, they happen to provide perfect contrast to the song’s warm instrumentation. At the close of each chorus, Winter’s falsetto cuts across the building of steady and soft nylon-stringed guitar, ad-libbing reeds, measured piano melodies, and the delicate rhythms of handheld percussive instruments.
The contrast of this falsetto finale is more than textural – it unlocks a new register in the song. As Winter summits his vocal range, the instruments function as rock-solid foundations for his trembled and resonant lead lines. His singing carves a definite role for the straight-ahead orchestration, which in turn cedes some spotlight for the vocals.
Winter, though unique, owes major credit to the influences on his instrument-like technique. Far from the first to explore a riff-like singing style.
In fact, Winter follows a lineage of musicians, from Ella Fitzgerald to Stevie Wonder, who employ this technique. In a modern context, jazz singer Samara Joy has, in my opinion, elevated this tradition to a new level – flowing across searing melodies through an expansive vocal range. As mentioned above, a profound tinge of Lou Reed and Bob Dylan can be found in the talky or casual feeling of his vocals. So, then, if his vocal lineage is so rooted in longstanding tradition – why does Winter’s voice feel so unique, so urgent?
I wish the answer could be as concrete as the question. I feel I can only approach an answer with what I feel is his biggest strength as a vocalist: how he pushes his vocals outside of conventionally melodic usage. While vocalists frequently use glissandos, a term for harsh slides between notes, they do so precisely; gliding across specific semitones. Winter pushes this technique to an extreme on Heavy Metal by exaggerating his glissandos and leaning hard into their dissonance. The chorus of “Drinking Age” provides a perfect example. Winter slides into the first note and pushes hard on his voice to give a unique wobbling effect as the note is held. These embellishments constitute the magic of Winter’s singing; he pushes conventional vocal techniques to their breaking point, and yet, somehow, it always serves the song.
Featured Image Caption: Cameron Winter, photograph taken by The Line of Best Fit.
