Summer Ames

Ames’ voice, at the very least, is above average—and it certainly doesn’t lack charm. But, to her detriment, her music has a bit of a more customary coffeehouse sound. In many ways, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.

What’s exciting, though, is where Ames seems to be headed as a songwriter. On this EP, you can hear glimpses of it: She’s, at times, reaching pretty far down inside. And it’s on these cuts that Ames actually shines a little. It takes guts to write from such a vulnerable and exposed place, and if you listen, albeit closely, you’ll hear some stirring moments of it on this disc. Thematically, Ames appears in the process of letting go of her youth, and writing from a place of a more cultivated woman, intrepidly grabbing at inspiration from behind the walls.

Is she there yet, from a writer’s standpoint? Not quite. But those few glimmers of hope go a long way.