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Listening To: Allison Stayer - The Latest Hour

Written by Pacdan

So, today I was listening to the debut album or Allison Stayer, a singer-songwriter from Montana, and I was fairly impressed. She sings beautifully, which is always a good start with me since while I’ll consider most anything - if you’re singing sucks it’s going to be a lot harder to impress me. Not one of those immediately memorable voices or particularly unique, but very pretty and more than enough to carry the music. The music itself is primarily piano driven pop folk, ala Tori Amos or Rachael Sage, but more down tempo than many of her contemporaries, even getting a bit bluesy at times. Nothing about the instrumentals ever gets particularly complicated, it’s obviously intended to be lyrics driven. This is, of course, about what I’d expect for the style, but I really wouldn’t mind seeing just a little more complexity. The biggest complaint I have with the album, however, is that she never really establishes herself in your mind particularly well. I liked about 3/4 of the songs on the CD, but none of them were immediately unforgettable and, listening to them again, I’d never be able to immediately recognize who it was. Everything works well together, but at times just seems completely derivative. Not that there’s anything wrong with the songs themselves, just that she never does anything incredible unique, sticking to the standards of the style. While there’s obviously something to be said for not messing with a good thing, one of the most important parts of establishing yourself as a musician is taking what has been done and adding your own unique contribution to it. The Latest hour really lacks that unique something to make it new and memorable. As it stands, The Latest Hour is a solid release from a talented musician, it’s just not going to revolutionize anything. And, while the songwriting is solid, it lacks anything that will make a huge lasting impression - at least for me. Still, fans of Tori Amos and company will probably enjoy this.

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