Hannah Ellis Delivers Potent And Captivating First LP “That Girl”

From the pure performance she gives in “Us” to the more meticulous offering of the piano-based “Someone Else’s Heartbreak,” Hannah Ellis is letting her vocals lead the way in her new album That Girl. While singer/songwriters in American country music have been setting a high standard for longer than I can remember, there’s something truly remarkable about the hybridity players are utilizing in this new chapter of Nashville’s storied history, and Ellis is a good example of what I’m talking about. Though humble with her words in many situations, her harmonies are enormous and project a potency you don’t hear very often in pop influenced country. 

As much as I would like to call this an LP driven solely by its vocalists’ incredibly melodic ornaments, to say that the instrumentation in tracks like “Country Can,” “One of These Days,” “Still,” or “Karma on the Rocks” is an afterthought just wouldn’t be true. Contrarily, I think there’s a lot of chemistry between Ellis and her band influencing the way we interpret the lyrical themes of the aforementioned songs, and it certainly helps to shape the larger narrative of the LP in general. Great Americana is all about compositional association, and despite this being a solo venture, the connection between everyone in the studio is evident even from afar. 

Ellis’ songwriting is astoundingly sharp, but it’s especially noteworthy in the likes of the title cut, “Wine Country,” and “Plans.” She’s not urgent with her poeticisms, but instead quite disciplined with how she’s constructing a theme in That Girl, which makes for a more complete listening session when going over the record track by track. This is a very unselfish singer/songwriter, and there’s no stepping away from the better part of this album without acknowledging as much – between production quality and natural poise, hers is a presence you can’t help but become enamored with. 

Principled lyrical wit can be found everywhere in That Girl, to the point where even the simplest of moments in “Replaceable,” “Home and a Hometown,” and “Too Much & Not Enough” feel really immersive and emotionally charged. Ellis is someone who can do a lot with her voice and not much else, but in terms of measuring her abilities to mesh with a group of musicians and debut verses that go beyond what the standard is comprised of, this LP couldn’t have been made any better than it is. 

Temperament is the keystone of all unadulterated success in music, and Hannah Ellis’ is quite captivating to discover in the baker’s dozen songs included in That Girl to start off this new year. She has a magnetism that seems to go on for miles, and best of all, it isn’t boxed into her persona as a singer/songwriter. Experimentation is in her future, and if you’re not sure what I mean by this, just take a peek at the ambitiousness of the material in That Girl and the powerhouse woman responsible for bringing it to all of our attention this January. 

 Mindy McCall