Natalie Estes - 20/20 Vision (2017)

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Written by Shannon Cowden, posted by blog admin

20/20 Vision is a four song EP release recorded in Los Angeles by Nashville native Natalie Estes. Her journey from Music City obscurity to recording in the nation’s second largest city is inspiring without ever lapsing into cliché. Estes initially chose another path for her passions and performed ballet for many years before the possibilities of a music career revealed themselves to her courtesy of hearing Adele’s “To Make You Feel My Love” for the first time. This moment prompted her to shift her focus and the results are impressive Her work on 20/20 Vision has been facilitated by contributions from a fine supporting cast who frame her voice and talents in such a manner that she emerges from this collection as one of the most promising newcomers in many moons. Four songs might seem rather brief, but she makes the most of it with a nicely diverse approach that makes each of these individual tracks vividly stand out.

You know this is going to be a great release from the first song. “Until I Do” has a lot of pop magic, but there’s an equal amount of understated subtlety. Listen to how there’s a brief flair of piano bringing listeners into the track and how Estes’ singing fits the arrangement and the two elements strengthen each other. There’s a similar element driving the great number “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire” and it announces itself from the first. This song sounds like it needs and deserves a big brass section to carry it even higher but, as it plays, stands as arguably the most impressive song on 20/20 Vision. Estes definitely throws herself into with considerable effort and balances emotiveness with unbridled zest. Even the use of the title can’t drag this number down and it never sounds overly familiar.

“Reminds Me of You” comes across as an ideal single for Estes thanks to its likability and charisma, but it also has a sound familiar to the listener while still remaining close to Estes’ own distinctive take. The guitar work is especially delectable, but there’s just a nice overall feel to the song that will appeal to many. The EP’s final song “Bad Game” revisits the same themes we heard on the second track but takes on a more uptempo pace. The shift makes it an equally punchy number, but the same pop strengths distinguishing the EP as a whole are in evidence here. 20/20 Vision might seem small in stature, based solely on the inclusion of four songs, but there’s little question that Estes could have scarcely hoped for a better result. It’s pop with substance and some other understated influences that make it stand out even more.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars