Allegra Doesn’t Ask Permission Anymore

Allegra doesn't just creep into the picture. She sweeps in like an intense furnace blasting through the club's stained carpet, the background noise of the club and the annoying concrete of London holding on tightly to each step she takes as she comes through.

When her song "Wildfire" dominated the commercial pop charts during Music Week, Allegra could have easily taken that path again. Instead, Allegra chose to create something with heat — she created Five Tracks of Friction; she created Red!

Red Round 2's (EP #2) sounds like the midpoint in an epic story, the act of establishing self-confidence in does not require permission in order to be creative. All Five Tracks have a lot of groove to them, but with "Ash," Allegra found her pivot point: it is darker, there is some control on it, and the synths feel like there is electricity running through them under her skin.

This progression makes sense, though. Allegra's early club tracks with Tiësto and Alok taught her about scale, i.e., the power of a chorus to move people to dance. And Unsent Love Letters Vol 1 taught her about truth - that when she says something, she gets heard even when the lights come up after the music stops. With Red, Allegra has merged both types of songs together: essentially, she has created five songs that reflect vulnerability and also reflect style. She created five songs that carry true emotions but have been engineered to achieve maximum emotional impact.

Her physical appearance is reflected by the sonic nature of the sound: streamlined and composed, with no extraneous movement. You can see it in the video, and you can feel it in the audience's focus on her—both in terms of dancing and in terms of listening. In essence, Allegra is not pursuing her adult life; she has arrived there with a strong bearing on solid ground, with the audibilities having dissipated, and leaving a trail of ash behind her.