Fernando Honorato’s debut solo undertaking as Fernando Eyes called ‘Center Of Your World’ is a haunting batch of songs, pulsing with raw emotional power . Walking through an album is the feeling you get when you listen to this one, each track a shot to capture a moment longed for but gone.
The album's beating heart is the title track, a slow burning melancholy of a song which is a combination of the slow burning soul of Bowie's Berlin period and the atmospheric depth Joy Division became so famous for. Honorato’s voice is fragile, commanding, vulnerable, resilient, overlapping near transparent guitar lines and expansive percussion. The electronic tinged introspection here is just as warm and as weighted as the rest of the record, as tracks like "A Million Times" prove.
What makes this collection stand out is that it will not let itself be ashamed of emotional nakedness. Written virtually from his apartment, these records have an overheard diary entry feel to them while still polished with the rawness preserved. Not only do the lyrical themes mirror the musical arrangements, but sometimes lush and enveloping, and other times stark and unsettling, the musical arrangements are perfect counterpoints.
And “Center Of Your World” only asks to be listened to, it demands that it be listened to. To those who will sit with its darkness the album offers up deep rewards; a master class in how vulnerability can become strength, how melancholy can become something beautiful and unexpected. They say the past defines a person but I choose to leave the past in the past.
