Black to Gold is a bold, beautiful flower just starting to bloom. Rising in the who's-who of a cappella, making a place in the aca-sphere, they're turning heads with interesting arrangements, full throated belts, and modern pop-rock sensibility. Steadily climbing as competitors as they work to make their live performances match their studio prowess, B2G deliver a truly impressive debut with Wide Awake.

B2G gravitates toward thoughtful, energetic, anthemic pop delivered in a wrapping of easily-accessible, smartly-placed, studio-enhanced arrangements. Björk's Hyperballad is the group's handshake song. And while no one could bring the edge and pure oddity that is inseparable from a Björk lead, Stefanie Sambrano delivers a compelling pop-centric lead that handily meets the song's challenges and then some. As the song ends and the next begins, listeners would be forgiven for thinking the next track, Decode, was merely a variation in Sambrano's tone, when in fact, the track reveals another powerful and impactful lead in the form of Leah Raquel. Blink slowly and raise an eyebrow, because it happens yet again when we're treated to Courtney Lee Cox. Careful listening reveals differences, of course. But on first listen, it's surprisingly easy to mistake one inspired pop belter for the other. By the end of the album it's easy to see how B2G's female power trio is both a pillar of strength and a unifying element of the group's sound.

Adding to the cohesion is the presumably sleepless Connor Martin on recording, editing, mixing (tracks 1 and 8), and arranging (all but 3 and 9). And if that's not enough, he joins the co-writing team along with Andrew Orsie, Sambrano, Raquel, and rock solid vp from Aldon Knolls for a combined contribution that is the soaring, aching original with the underwhelming name: Track 5. It's a gem of a song and could easily be a hit in and out of the a cappella genre. "Be my friend for a minute. Be my friend for a lifetime. Look me in the eyes and stick around for me. For every flaw you find stick around for me." If you aren't moved by this epic and intimate ode to friendship after three years of pandemic-induced scarcity, then you are urged to listen again until the ice around your heart begins to melt.

With strong assists from well known mixers Jill Clark (tracks 2 and 5) and Angela Ugolini (tracks 3, 6, and 9), as well as Jacob Tourjeman (tracks 4 and 7) and mastering by Dave Sperandio of Vocal Mastering, the release sounds fully professional, capturing the voices and presenting them at their best, a feat that involves skills both in front of the mic and behind it. Most young groups need to refine both their arranging and their matching of leads to solos. B2G is exceptional in that these musicians easily avoid these pitfalls, arranging and performing as if they were a far more seasoned group. B2G delivers track after track that holds the ever-shrinking attentions of today's listener. Andrew Orsie also adds a particularly memorable gender switch on Turning Tables. 

To be nitpicky, I did occassionally feel that the the backs were a little overly tuned and a little artificial, but we can chock this up to the robotic norms of the 21st Century.

For fans of today's power pop delivered with creativity and depth, Wide Awake is well worth the listen.

Seems like every five years or so, along comes an a cappella album that I'm forced to acknowledge is very good but which I really didn't like all that much.

Wide Awake from Black to Gold is this half-decade's entry.

To its credit, it has energy, it has power, it has conscious and purposeful craft on display in all areas — arranging, performance, and production. Even when I don't necessarily like all the outcomes, there are deliberate creative and interpretive choices that have been made. And when those choices are executed as well as they are here, it already would elevate any recording above most of the rest.

So why does the album leave me so unfulfilled?

I think it's because there's a sameness to a lot of what is offered here: a sameness in volume, a sameness in production, and a sameness in interpretive approach to most of the material.

First and foremost, you are definitely likely to remain Wide Awake throughout because it's relentlessly loud — bordering on strident at times. But for some moments of Track 5 (no misprint; that's the name of the song) and the tail end of Turning Tables, moments of quiet are almost non-existent. Now that may not be too be surprising if you're familiar with the repertoire covered here — a lot of it is loud and insistent. But if nowhere less, surely at least the contemplative, emotional first halves of In the Morning and Turning Tables deserve a chance to breathe and a chance to build. And elsewhere, even if the song is raging in full throttle, more colors and more nuance in the background vocals would provide greater depth and meaning and variation — instead of feeling like everyone is emo-yelling most of the time.

The above complaint segues neatly into production choices which, similarly, return to the same wells of "bells and whistles" over and over. That the vocal percussion is heavily sampled is not problematic — that's long since become the norm — but it's also been sequenced as if on steroids, regularly offering up seemingly "super-human" beats and fills (lovers of 32nd notes and flams will rejoice!) that distract rather than enhance. And even if the group's vp, Aldon Knolls, can replicate some — or all — of these beats in live performance, the artistic choices in far too many cases are excessive and become annoying. Ditto for the group's love of a distorted, thundering bass which can be effective at times but might be employed more judiciously. And not helping the aforementioned volume issues, the assorted mixers who worked on this album have all unfailingly let the background voices compete with — and at times overwhelm — the soloists. That too can work for certain songs, or at least for certain moments within songs, but as a consistent aural choice across nine songs, it's another contributing factor to the difficulty of my enjoying Wide Awake as a whole.

As for interpretive choices, here's where your mileage may vary. But for me, streamlining Björk robs Björk of what makes Björk Björk (if that makes any sense). And taking the quirkiness of Hyperballad and making a more straight-ahead, traditional rock song is thoroughly unsatisfying (even if it sounds great). As alluded to above, the same is true for how In the Morning has been expanded here — and thus, to my mind, diminished. Maybe most frustratingly, Decode feels like the type of song that this group should blow out of the water, and instead, it just never takes off and rocks out as it should. There is also the matter of the final three songs which basically all sound the same. New Fears fairs the best — perhaps because it's the first of the three and also has the most varied arrangement — but other than gender-flipping the Britney solo, these three were basically interchangeable and almost indistinguishable from one another.

Returning to the original thesis, these folx are pros and they know what they're doing. They generally make intelligently conceived, upbeat a cappella music that is very much in line with what is popular these days. Don't let me stop you from checking them out, as you will surely enjoy one or more of these selections individually. If you choose to do the whole album in one sitting? Well, I warned you.

We've had some good debut albums roll through RARB over the years. But Wide Awake from NYC sextet Black to Gold borders on brilliant.

What you'll hear from top to bottom is a stunning trifecta of capabilities: the arrangements, the production, and the secret sauce simmer this all together in a soup pot ready for immediate serving. The secret sauce? Connor Martin, the co-founder, bass, and music director. His impressive and wide-reaching project list has culminated in Wide Awake, a debut album that follows the group's handful of single releases. Though all of the musicians in Black to Gold sound remarkably equally-gifted on the lead microphone (not true in many pro groups who have that one tenor or bass), the very cohesive style and arsenal of techniques on display marks this as Martin's showcase for Black to Gold.

The style? Complex, demanding arrangements with techno infusions from the studio. It feels inspired by some of the top European contemporary groups if you follow that scene, and hey, we start with a cover from Iceland's Björk. But you know that song. Here are my raw notes from Decode, which will set as your expectations for a first-time listen. "Jesus, this is a huge sound. Listen to all that attention to the percussion; someone knows drums around here. Whoa, did not see that fascinating bridge coming. Whoa, listen to all that wailing! How did they control that balance? Man, this dope shit is really expensive. How totally modern."

Totally modern, with production so differentiated it was surely storyboarded. The highs come together best for In the Morning, where the lead lines are put in their individual vocal ranges that just drip with effective desperation singing. It also sounds like the mix was worked in a fancy outer space rental; someplace out of reach where we haven't been yet, because this release is hard to compare to other American groups.

Two slightly less stellar tracks, but still head and shoulders above most a cappella works, are Track 5 (yes, that's the name) and Turning Tables. For Track 5, the motif is "Be my friend", delivered earnestly which is nice and all, but rather sentimental compared to the rest of the work here. In the era of streaming, it won't matter, but for those of us required to listen to full albums, this one doesn't sit right in the current line up even though it's a nice message. Turning Tables is capably delivered, but both the score and production are wearing casual street clothes when the rest of the release has a date somewhere big.

I mean, hot damn. This is really great news for our community. Onward, Black to Gold!