Ferras

Bio:Growing up in a small town in southern Illinois, FERRAS always felt out of place – a feeling only compounded when one day his father took him to the airport, promising a trip to Disneyland, but instead spiriting him away to Amman, Jordan. FERRAS took solace in the little Casio keyboard his father bought him and began writing songs.

Ferras approaches a big pop hook the way a Formula One driver approaches a straightaway — he floors it. Take the payoff of “Aliens and Rainbows,” the psychological and stylistic centerpiece of the 25-year-old artist’s album of the same name. Symphonic strings are cranked to the max, a vocal chorale summons up a celestial ahhh-ahhh, an electric guitar spins out a quicksilver figure and Ferras’ own elegant piano underscores the grandeur as he sings, “I would rather be with aliens and rainbows / On the other side of the universe / And finally...” — here he slides up into a goosebump-inducing falsetto — “This is me / This is my coup de grâce / My reality.” That urgent, stirring passage is a quintessential example of a risk-taking artist holding nothing back — which is what makes this audacious newcomer such a blast of fresh air.