Drifting into focus with a slow build that forms into a steady beat that synchronizes with a haunting pedal steel refrain that plays as a backdrop, there’s a sing-song groove that is spellbinding in Hannah Ellis’s “Too Much & Not Enough”. As the aural details of the structure come into focus, you become hypnotized within this brand new single and music video. Ellis herself is a source of dreamy decadence behind the microphone, and while the rhythm she straddles is jazzy to the point of feeling a bit avant-garde in spots, it’s the perfect coupling with her stripped down approach to the melodic faceting in this piece.
SMART LINK: https://hannahellis.lnk.to/TooMuchAndNotEnough
It sounds like Hannah Ellis is pushing her sound towards a more college radio-born indie pop sound on the track in the way she builds the chorus in “Too Much & Not Enough,” which immediately reminded me of something out of the midcentury vocal pop playbook the first time I sat down and listened to it. There’s a very old school stylization to the main harmony in this song, and although it’s subtle beside the texturally-profound melody line, it’s still enough to make the material feel as though it’s in a league of its own.
The eerie pedal steel guitar adds a fragility to the premise of the lyrical narrative is in this song, which is about a public figure’s interaction with fans and how that can affect their psyche. It contributes a lot of depth to the words that wouldn’t have been as clear and precise in the big picture here in a different set of circumstances. By creating an instrumental equilibrium that echoes the tone of the poetry in “Too Much & Not Enough,” Ellis makes it difficult for us to listen to her latest release and walk away unaffected.
There’s an exposed feel to every harmony in this release, and I don’t know that you need to be a professional critic of any sort to tell just how little filler there is in the mix. We’re getting all brawn and as limited a cosmetic varnish as possible, and though the music video is a bit more conceptual than the song is as a standalone, they both convey the same sense of authenticity that you rarely hear in contemporary mainstream song.
“Too Much & Not Enough” is a lot more subdued as a composition than anything you’ve heard in the Hannah Ellis discography in recent memory, but I think it has the potential to elevate her credibility in the mainstream beyond the country genre. I’ll be following her progress for certain, and I get the feeling this is someone we’re going to be seeing a lot more of in the future.
Garth Thomas