Description
From the opening notes of “Natural Rhythm”, there’s no doubt who you’re listening to. As always, her voice is to the fore, never swamped by the arrangements which are, like pretty much everything else, her own work. The lyrics are always intelligible, love at their heart but love found, and the album is well paced, by turns soulful, bluesy, jazz-inflected, and often with intricate cross-rhythms. Vocal harmonies, Armatrading multitracked, are piled up, and sometimes there’s call and response. And then of course there’s Armatrading’s polished guitar work – she started off laying down demos and mastered everything from the get-go – and the memorable bass lines, solos in themselves. You get the sense she writes to please herself, not anyone else – and certainly not to get a hit record, though she’s had plenty, Armatrading has never been easy to categorize as she straddles the lines between blues, jazz, and several in between. Consequences is her 22nd studio recording.
I’m a total fan of Joan Armatrading’s work and have been since the beginning. An exceptional artist, she mines the core of human emotions in ways relatable to all, while sharing those sentiments with a determined delivery that leaves no doubt as to the sentiments that she shares. She’s been plying her craft for the better part of 50 years, leaving a succession of indelible songs in her wake—“Walk Under Layers,” “Willow,” “Me, Myself, I,” “I Love it When You Call Me Names,” “The Weakness in Me” and “Down to Zero,” among them.
