The battle rounds continued last night on The Voice and as usual, they were cut-throat. At this point in the competition, everyone has enough talent to have caught the coaches attention in the blinds, making the decision of who to keep extremely difficult. With the steal in play, keeping the wrong person might even mean giving up someone who could go on to win the whole competition. That’s the nature of the competition though, and at least it makes for some interesting television.
Starting out the night, Anthony Riley and Travis Ewing from Team Pharrell took the stage. Having song the song picked from them many times before as a street performer, Anthony was overconfident going into the battle, something he’ll have to learn to tone down if he wants to make it far. Both gave a great performance, and like so many times in the past, the coaches summed it up, saying that picking a winner was about personal preference. For Pharrell, that meant Anthony but Blake was quick to steal Travis, seeing how much of a fight he put up.
Team Christina had their first battle of the competition next, pitting Ameera Delandro against Sonic, who is deaf in one ear. This affects her ability to hear Ameera over the sound of the music, making a duet difficult. For Ameera, it’s her nerves that need to be kept in check if she wants to do well. Unfortunately, when it came down to the battle, Ameera’s nervousness showed through, making her performance a bit pitchy. Sonic was the clear winner and moved on with Christina.
For Blake, it was another tough decision as Sarah Potenza and Hannah Kirby battled it out. Both girls have incredibly strong and powerful voices, the main obstacles being stage presence and being careful not to shout. Everyone expected Sarah to destroy Hannah in the battle, but Hannah really stepped up and showed everyone what she’s made of. Blake still ended up picking Sarah but Hannah’s performance was enough to draw Adam and Pharrell’s attention, the latter of whom she picked as her new coach.
The next battle was between Blaze Johnson and Michael Leier and was overall quite unimpressive. Michael has a nice voice but his stage presence is terrible, making it hard to look past. Both of their performances had flaws, but it’s Blaze who comes out on top. I don’t expect him to go much further in the competition unless he really steps up his game.
We all learned how country feels in Blake’s next battle between Cody Wickline and Matt Snook. Cody is still relatively new to singing while Matt has been around for a while but both are pure country. While Cody is a bit shy while practicing in front of the coaches, Matt comes on too strong and both need to work on their presence to do well. They manage to pull off a great performance but Matt’s generic voice isn’t able to stand up against Cody’s unique and distinctive voice, giving Cody the victory.
This took us to the final battle of the night and like usual, they saved the best for last. Paul Pfau and Meghan Linsey, from Pharrell’s team, took the stage in an outstanding performance that was emotional and satisfying. They told a story with their performance, making us deeply feel the lyrics to the classic Beatles song “Don’t Let Me Down.” Meghan was vocally much stronger than Paul, who despite having a unique voice, has some problems with the upper register. Pharrell surprised everyone by keeping Paul on his team, a mistake that may cost him the season. Blake, who Meghan had opened for in the past, was quick to steal her, beating out the other coaches.
In a quick montage that does nothing to benefit the singers featured, we also saw Joe Tolo from Team Christina as well as Deanna Johnson and Nathan Hermida from Team Adam move on. It seems odd that The Voice would air a two hour recap episode, but not give everyone a chance to be seen during the battle rounds. Next week should bring more strong performances, as we hopefully get to hear from all the remaining singers.
[Photo via NBC]
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