At first glance, you may think Florida-born musician Nicolina is Joan Jett reincarnated, but with a closer look at her debut full-length album, “Velvet Doors,” you realize that she is an artist of her own making, definitively original, equal parts innovative and intriguing—and any homage to the past found within her style simply serves as rich soil for the songstress of this generation to blossom and grow.
Inspired by icons such as Jett, Elton John, and even Quentin Tarantino, Nicolina is charting the path to becoming an icon herself, as her strong sense of identity found within “Velvet Doors” reveals a singer unafraid to let her true self shine—a trait representative of artists destined to make an impact of legendary status.
Released on September 17th, “Velvet Doors” introduces the world to a creative soul immersed in pop-rock of the seventies and eighties, with the innate ability to transcend both genre and era. With rock anthems that could easily be at home in sold-out stadiums decades in the past like “What a Feeling,” Nicolina brilliantly modernizes and mythologizes her influences as she concocts a genre all her own, while contemporary hits like “Abyss” could easily climb the Top 40 charts. Simultaneously gritty and glam, “Velvet Doors” brings to life the characteristics of classic rock and blues that the music industry has seemed to have forgotten, from the raw authenticity of seventies songwriters to the electric eccentricities of arena-rock bands of the eighties.
After appearing on FOX’s singing competition The Four, Nicolina released her debut EP, “Caution.” Now, along with spotlight artist features on local and satellite radio, as well as statewide radio tours, Nicolina has found global praise on national television and international magazines, setting a tone of high anticipation for “Velvet Doors.”
The 17-song record found life in Nicolina’s LA apartment, with most of the songs originally written as ballads on the piano. Over the two-year period of creating the album with producer Alec Zeilon, Nicolina transformed the ballads into the crossover works of art that they are today.
Proving herself a master of texture and sound, Nicolina especially shines on the album’s title track, as “Velvet Doors” stand out as the artist’s prime example of her capacity to magically make emotion tangible through sultry and smooth vocals and swooning guitar solos.
The album touches on the personal and the profound, as Nicolina’s perceptive lyrics begin conversations about the wild and wonderful journey of life. While Nicolina exudes confidence and cool, the artist shows a vulnerable side on singles like “Dollhouse” and “Crave,” which has surpassed over 500,000 streams on Spotify, demonstrating her capability of understanding and echoing the sentiments of listeners from all walks of life.
A champion of individuality and creativity, Nicolina has a powerful gift of showing that in her listeners’ uniqueness, they all can relate to one another through the truth of emotion, the universality of storytelling, and the connectivity of music. With “Velvet Doors,” Nicolina succeeds in her personal goal of creating music that embodies love and light, making a positive difference in the lives of her audience, each searching for their authentic purpose and place in this world.
