‘Rising Star’ preview: Gabrielle Nicole, Macy Kate, and more to face off

Rising StarOn tomorrow night’s “Rising Star,” the show is once again live as the contenders all square off in what is a series of Duels that actually puts “The Voice” to shame. It may be one of the only things, but still…

In case you missed the first week, the premise here is simple: Each contestant has an opportunity to perform two songs, and each one is voted on by people using the app in real time. The one with the highest percentage of votes advance. There is no threshold here, but everything else is still the same. The only real reason that we prefer this to “The Voice’s” battle rounds is that here, the artists can still perform songs that they want to, and it’s not some elaborate mish-mash that you would only see in real life at a place like the Grammys.

Here are the three duels that you’re going to see on ABC come tomorrow night:

  1. April Lockhart vs. Sonnet Simmons – April’s story felt like something more of a nice story, but Sonnet had a distinct tone that was interesting … and haunting, we say? We’re still not sure if we liked it, but we were at least intrigued by it.
  2. Adam Jaymes vs. Austin French – Right now, we give the edge to Adam on the strength of his first audition, but to be frank neither party was really that interesting in the end.
  3. Gabrielle Nicole vs. Macy Kate – This is the duel we’re most curious with, largely because we have no clue why these two are being paired together. Gabrielle is vocally the best person we’ve heard all season, while YouTube star Macy (who was “pulled from the crowd”) had the best overall audition in terms of audience score.

We’ll see what happens Sunday, but for now click here to see our take on the first episode in this series. Also, sign up for more news worth singing about via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: ABC

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