Amy Allison – Everything And Nothing Too
Had Amy Allison been born a few decades earlier, she’d have been a perfect frontperson for a girl group. Her nasal croon — an acquired taste, to be sure — longs to be swathed in Wall-of-Sound-style arrangements as her lyrics catalogue every romantic slight and count every tear that falls.
The production isn’t quite that sonically ambitious on Everything And Nothing Too, Allison’s fourth solo effort, but the album doesn’t suffer for it. Several tracks sport jangling guitars, handclaps, chiming glockenspiel and whipcrack drums that imply Spectorian splendor without obscuring her vocals or sending the recording budget into the stratosphere.
But Allison’s work isn’t a mere nostalgia trip, nor is it alt-country, as it’s been termed in the past. Indeed, miscategorization seems almost a birthright for the daughter of genre-jumping pianist Mose Allison, who plays and sings along here on his song “Was”.
Aside from that track and a gorgeously melancholic version of the Smiths’ “Everyday Is Like Sunday”, the songs are all originals. Allison lends a dreamy wistfulness to “Heart Of London”, offering hope that, despite all odds, everything will be OK. That wish is also at the center of the album opener, “Don’t Go To Sleep”.
A happy outcome seems less certain on “Have You No Pride?”, a warning to a friend about a faithless lover. Elsewhere, the romantic sway of “Just Give Me Moonlight In Vermont” contrasts sharply with the rocking “Troubled Boy”, in which Allison attempts to woo the object of her desire by confessing, “I’m troubled, too.”