Joan Armatrading - Consequences

Studio album follow-up to 2018's Not Too Far Away

Consequences, Joan Armatrading's new album, is one of her most intimate and direct albums yet, and one that wears its conscience and its heart on its sleeve. Her 22nd studio album to date, it ably illustrates the fact that Armatrading never likes to repeat herself. It's a very different follow-up to 2018's Top 30 hit album Not Too Far Away.

The change of musical pace will come as no surprise to Joan's many legions of world-wide fans — she's always been a pioneer in what she does — ever since the release of her first album in 1972 when her then record company, by their own admission, had little idea of how to present her, being so outside the norm. It should also be remembered that Joan Armatrading was the very first female singer/songwriter from the U.K. to have international success with the songs she wrote and performed.

Whether she's playing a blinding electric guitar solo that would put many of the recognized "Guitar Heroes" in the shade or focusing on specific genres like jazz or blues, Joan has always gone where the music takes her with no predictability attached. With her heartfelt direct and melodic trademark vocal style and lyrics that tell it exactly how it is and a strong rhythmic flow throughout, Consequences is an album of some surprises for sure but couched in a passionate intensity that benefits from listening to it straight through from start to finish. A complete aural experience and an uncompromising tour de force that engages and gets better with every listen.

And while the subject matter, love in its many guises, is an innately intimate topic this is not an album about Joan herself but rather, as with all her work, one written from observation and where she has created songs that people can make their own, applying lyrics to whatever their own particular circumstances might be.

Side A

1. Natural Rhythm

2. Already There

3. To Be Loved

4. Better Life

5. Glorious Madness

Side B

1. Like

2. Consequences

3. Sunrise (Instrumental)

4. Think about Me

5. To Anyone Who Will Listen

Be the first to write a review for this item OR just rate it