Award-winning Canadian indie pop band Walk Off the Earth (WOTE) has released their first original 7-track children’s album, Romeo Eats Vol. 1, on September 24, 2021. This album was released alongside the group’s freshly-launched web series, which follows the titular Romeo Luminati on a culinary adventure where the three-year-old boy samples various diverse foods from around the world. This album is available on all digital streaming platforms via Golden Carrot Records/The Orchard.
WOTE’s lead singer Gianni Luminati, Romeo’s father, collaborated with fellow lead singer and mother to Romeo, Sarah Blackwood, in order to create this celebration of Romeo’s peculiar taste and general love of the eclectic. Regarding the album, WOTE comments, “We’re so excited to share Romeo’s genuine love for food with the world! We hope it inspires fans of all ages to expand their palette and knowledge of everything nutritious, delicious and suspicious! We had such a blast creating the music for the show. It allowed us to step outside the box and create within a new realm of music! We really think people are going to love the songs, the show, and of course, Romeo!”
Their enthusiasm definitely shines through in this EP. Each track on the album features a different fruit or dish, including sushi, durians, and soursop, all of which are given their own family-friendly electronic beat. Despite the album’s targeted audience, each track’s lyrics are wonderfully crafted. The lyrics are seminars in both cookery and eatery, coaching their listeners on how best to approach eating each unique dish, while the musical composition of the lyrics themselves are catchy and upbeat. They feature alliteration and syllabic rhythms familiar to rapping circles, and yet are simple enough for younger fans to sing along to. Every song is sure to be a musical hit with both children and their parents alike.
The album kicks off with “The Sushi Song,” a bouncy and poppy sort of track that sets the mood with both tone and pacing. Cheerful, upbeat, and packing a punch with lyrics that coach the listener on terms such as uramaki, temaki, and itamae, the song sets a great precedent for other songs to follow, demonstrating the band’s versatility and sound with each passing number.
One of this album’s greatest strengths is its instrumentals. Every song segues well into the other, and maintains and consistent theme despite the veritable buffet of genre styles throughout all seven songs. Seemingly innocuous tracks like “The Avocado Song” and “The Dragonfruit Song” boast strong electronic rock and a percussive rap beat respectively, paying homage to the general aesthetic of each dish presented in the track.
Aside from the album’s instrumentals, Sarah Blackwood and Gianni Luminati’s vocals are also a decisive factor in this album’s quality. Sarah demonstrates her familiar clarity and dulcetness in “The Cacao Song,” a track that features a tropical, semi-calypso bounce, while Gianni’s playful and wide-ranged vocals in multiple tracks, most notably “The Soursop Song.” Other vocalists lent their sound to this album, including Romeo himself, who makes brief vocal appearances throughout, indie rock band DelMar in “The Dragonfruit Song,” and finally a Montreal-assembled band, What if Elephants, to help to wrap up the album with “The Mangosteen Song,” which features acoustic guitars and a classic drum set in a soothing finale track to wind the otherwise upbeat and bright-noted album to a close.
With the release of Romeo Eats Vol. 1, Walk Off the Earth marks off fifteen years of performing since their conception back in 2006. Earlier this year, WOTE delivered their sixth studio full-length album, Meet You There, which included their latest Hot AC radio single, “Love You Right”, featuring GRAMMY-nominated Danish pop group Lukas Graham. Walk Off the Earth boasts a 2016 JUNO Award and numerous nominations over the next five years in various categories such as “Best Pop Album,” “Best Group,” and “Fan Choice of the Year.” Since 2020, WOTE has collaborated with notable industries such as Pokémon (“Journey Starts Today”) and the NHL (“Hockey Anthem”).
As of September 2021, Walk Off the Earth has over 1 billion cumulative YouTube views, 8 million social subscribers, and has sold over 1 million records worldwide. Stream Romeo Eats Vol. 1 on Spotify today, and watch the companion web series on YouTube if you can’t get enough of this band’s addictive sound!
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