Season Ammons – No Restraint
This 10-cut CD tackles some weighty subjects, but the production is sharp, concise & entertaining. Musically Texas-born Season Ammons has some tasty morsels in her bowl. The music is like a tiger that ripples its fur against the oak of the instruments.
The 32-minute David Percefull (electric 6 string & baritone guitars/synths/grand piano/Hammond organ/Wurlitzer electric piano) also provided string arrangements & produced No Restraint (Drops July 21–Cobalt Blue Records). The work was recorded in Texas & touches upon some basic topics – heartache, addiction, self-actualization, mental health, making sense of life’s journey & healing. Ammons is an award-winning artist but so are many others who time has forgotten.
Fortunately, Season maintains her quality level with many of these tunes. There’s nothing to turn the orbit around these melodies, nothing innovative – but Season being a cautious artist shapes each song with relevance & keeps much of her work here in a casual observance. Nothing controversial, nothing offensive.
Season Ammons’s bluesy delicious & seductive voice (“Help Me,” “I Still Love You”) suggests how good she’d be as an easy listening, lounge lizard, or middle-of-the-road jazz chanteuse ala Julie London or Peggy Lee. She’s convincing on tunes like these. Quite impressive.
Season (lead & backing vocals/acoustic & electric guitar/banjo/mandolin/12 & high string acoustic guitar/Wurlitzer electric piano) certainly has style as on songs like “Something You Never Had.” She’s in command of her approach despite being an inch away from the mainstream-commercial pulp. She manages that terrain expertly & never crosses over into that saccharine territory. Her music holds fast to its muscular artistry.
Season has expertise with the rougher edges of her repertoire though her voice is too smooth to be Melissa Ethridge-inspired. Though on “Help Me,” she comes close to Ethridge’s soulful approach. Ammons’ softer poignant realms are firmly in a Bonnie Raitt spirit. Her diversity is on point & her intonation, range, tonality & phrasing are decorative. This quality can be found in the beautiful “Not That Far Away.”
Some tunes are good but typical, commercially-oriented formula songs. More for selective tastes than hard listening. But Ammons covers her bases admirably. But like most people, they may toss in lots of satin blouses in their suitcase but there’s always a few T-shirts. Her cliché heavy tunes are just that. Easy on the dance floor & calories for the ear. But every good artist should have a few danceable songs, so she’s forgiven.
Highlights – “Don’t Break My Heart,” “Not That Far Away,” “Different Drum,” “No Restraint,” “Tell Me How,” “Help Me” & “Something You Never Had.”
Musicians – Glenn Fukunaga (upright & electric bass), JJ Johnson (drums), Kate Musker, Lydia Lowndes-Northcott & Clifton Harrison (violins) with Caroline Dearnley & Will Schofield (cellos).
Color image by Ray Redding/TexasRedd & Devious Planet Media. CD cover by Nicola Gell. CD @ https://www.seasonammons.com/