Unchange
Artist: Gina Sicilia
Review by Mixmaster Linc
Starting with her 2007 recording debut, which helped garner her a nomination for the Blues Music Award’s Best New Artist, Gina Sicilia has been carving out a lane as a blues and soul singer, expanding eventually into all sorts of American Roots music. Her latest record, Unchange, is her tenth, and represents her return to VizzTone after three albums with Blue Élan Records. Finding herself between labels, she kick-started the album from revenues she earned starting her own Italian food business in Nashville.
Produced, recorded, and mixed by Colin Linden in 2022 in Nashville, Unchange features Linden on guitars and backing vocals, Johnny Dymond on bass, and Bryan Owings on drums, as well as backing vocalists Ann and Regina McCrary.
The ten songs on the album include six originals written by either Sicilia or Linden, and four covers, from the likes of Sam Cooke and Reverend Gary Davis. The songs vary in their genre from blues, to gospel, to Americana, but played in order, the album seems cohesive and seamless. Most of this is due to the warm melodicism of Sicilia’s voice, and the consistent relatively stripped-down support of the band behind her. My personal favorite cuts are Davis’s “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, and the originals, “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Wrong” and the aching ballad “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere”.
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