Vince Leigh’s Single Review: Rabbit Hole by Emme Lentino
Rabbit Hole, the new one from Emme Lentino, comes strutting in with a pop-rock riff and a pocketful of glitter, then very quickly lets you know the glitter may have been scraped from the floor of some beautiful digital casino where everyone is smiling, selling, scrolling, healing, branding, breaking down and calling it content. Good. Finally. A pop song that understands the modern world is not merely fast, but sticky. Emme Lentino is not some shrinking violet wandering into the studio wondering where the microphone goes. She has been around the block, the stage, the screen, the radio booth and the international song contest circuit. Her music has found its way into television, advertising, retail spaces and chart positions; her face and voice have travelled through NBC, MTV Australia, Voice of America and various other portals of the mediated universe. Which means when she sings about distraction, temptation and the loneliness of being supposedly connected to everyone, she is not doing sociology homework. She knows the machine. She has worked inside its glow. Rabbit Hole is built like a lure. The opening riff is bright enough to make you think you are safe. Then the verse pulls the floor out, and there is Emme’s voice, close and calm, doing that dangerous thing good singers do when they refuse to shout the danger at you. She lets it approach. She lets the song breathe. Then comes the chorus, sleek and seductive, with enough lift to satisfy the pop bloodstream and enough shadow to keep the whole thing from turning into motivational wallpaper. The song is ostensibly about the age of distraction: AI, social media, influencers, greed, the endless grab for attention, the strange sadness of being able to contact anyone while feeling less known than ever. But Rabbit Hole is smarter than a complaint. It is not wagging its finger at the kids and their phones. It is asking why everybody, young and old and allegedly sensible, keeps leaning toward the glow. What makes it land is that Lentino believes in the emotional stakes. She is interested in the healing power of performance, yes, but she is not handing out scented candles here. Rabbit Hole is a bright, seductive little warning flare from an artist with enough craft to make the warning enjoyable. It is catchy, stylish, slightly haunted and much less harmless than it first appears. Down we go, then. But at least this time someone brought a decent chorus.
