Pam Tillis - Looking For A Feeling

Stellar Cat Records

****

Country music’s melancholy queen has turned in the year’s sneakiest set of addictive love and life songs. Despite a gap of more than a dozen years since her last solo album of all new material, Pam Tillis remains the epitome of a country star. Her approach to country music and songwriting has always been from a contemporary standpoint that keeps the music relevant without forsaking its roots. To that end, there are several very personal songs that mean a lot to Pam but will also resonate with listeners as she pours her heart and soul into her new album. Her striking voice is distinctive and powerful, capable of wide emotional range; her songs take their musical colours from a broad palette that includes country, r & b, Americana, pop and soul, all beautifully knitted together through her innate musicality and heartfelt delivery.

The r & b groove of the co-written title song, the yearning soulful sound of The Scheme Of Things and the sing-along vocal hook that gives the Beatlesesque Karma a contemporary pop dimension are among the new twists. But there are also songs like the ballads Last Summer’s Wine and Lady Music that will be like musical comfort food for fans familiar with Pam Tillis’ exemplary back catalogue. The reflective Better Friends is a heart-breaking delight. Pam is in top vocal form, delivering every line with total authority. As that ol' cliché goes, she’s lived every word she sings. The languid My Kind Of Medicine shows off her smooth, laid back vocals over a Billy Sherrill-inspired arrangement of softly eerie steel guitar, groovy organ, gentle guitars and honeyed harmonies straight out of a Charlie Rich countrypolitan soundtrack. More country, more ready for the bar is Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings’ Dark Turn Of Mind, a country waltz full of disappointment and moon bent hopes nursing a lonely heart from the wrong side of the bar. The hypnotic Burning Star stumbles purposefully into a psychedelic soundscape that is the perfect lead-in to the swirling instrumental reprise of Better Friends that closes out the album.

Pam Tillis offers us both rich textured melodies and emotional vocal intensity with powerful and personal songwriting that’s grounded but not bound by classic country-pop conventions. Overall, this album is a grower, with songs that will stick and resonate on repeated plays. 

 

www.pamtillis.com

 

May 2020