Amelia White - Home Sweet Hotel

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album

I like this album.  It's quite gritty and punchy in places and has a genuineness about it which gives it something extra.

Amelia White is a new artist to me, but I'm glad to have found her work.  She writes very decent songs on varied themes, but they generally have a rather world-weary air about them – which is fine by me.  She has been compared to Lucinda Williams, but in her sound she seems to me to be much closer to Eliza Gylkison – which I think is a very good thing.  She sings well and the band and production set the songs off well.

This doesn't stand out massively from the large crowd of very good Americana around at the moment (especially from women), but it's a very decent album of good songs, well sung.  If you have any interest in this genre, I can recommend this – it's good.

(Just in case anyone's interested, these are just some of the albums from female singer songwriters in the last two or three years which I think have been really outstanding.  They are, in no particular order:

Mary Gauthier - Trouble & Love
Thea Gilmore - Regardless
Amy Speace - How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat and That Kind Of Girl
Emily Barker - Dear River and The Toerag Sessions
Natalie Merchant - Natalie Merchant and Paradise Is There
Olivia Chaney - The Longest River
Amy LaVere - Runaway's Diary
Sharon van Etten - Are We There
Eliza Gilkyson - Nocturne Diaries
Sarah Jarosz - Build Me Up From Bones
Amanda Shires - Down Fell The Doves
Laura Marling - Short Movie
Alela Diane - About Farewell

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Power In the Blood
Kris Delmhorst - Blood Test

Ana Egge – Bright Shadow

Suzanne Vega – Close-Up Series and Tales From The Realm…
Patty Griffin - American Kid and Servant of Love
Anais Mitchell - Young Man In America
Lori McKenna - Massachusetts
Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer, Different Park and Pageant Material

Ruth Moody – These Wilder Things)