With her latest alt-rock single Burning, Oakland’s Naomi Neva delivers a fierce reckoning dressed in distortion and ashes, and somehow makes devastation sound almost … let’s say fun? Yeah, don’t let the smoldering subject matter fool you. Yes, this is a song born of wildfire trauma, broken trust, and environmental dread, but Burning dances on the edge with a driving beat and lyrics that kinda hiss like smoke under the door.
From the very first downstroke of the guitar, Burning pulses with urgency. Naomi’s voice, equal parts vulnerability and trauma, carries the weight of someone who’s been through it and comes out louder. “This is not a story / like you push me aside,” she sings, carving her pain into melody. Then comes the unrelenting refrain: “It’s burn, it’s all burning now / burn burn burn burn / we’re all burning now.” The repetition scorches. It’s a ritual. It’s a scream. It even almost feels like a release!
But where others might lean into despair, Naomi finds defiance. Even amid lyrics about sticky chairs, fractured friendships, and a body under medical siege (“take my temperature / take my love / I’m so much more than bluff”), Burning stays alight with momentum. There’s anger here, yes, but also an almost mischievous glee in turning destruction into power. She doesn’t just sing about falling apart, she makes it sound exhilarating!
Self-produced in her home studio and polished at Abbey Road (yes, that Abbey Road), Burning is as sonically rich as it is emotionally raw. You can hear the punk roots in her DNA, those early East Bay days fronting a band with her sisters, but Naomi’s voice has grown deeper, more dangerous, and more nuanced with time. Her sound now straddles indie grit and alt-rock grandeur, with flashes of folk tenderness just beneath the blaze.
In Burning, Naomi Neva builds a bonfire of reckoning; and weirdly, it’s a thrill to stand close!
