Jana Mila – Chameleon (2024)

Review by Marcy Donelson:
After Dutch singer/songwriter Jana Mila made her recording debut in 2022 with a spare alt-country single, “When Times Get Rough,” that prompted millions of listens on streaming platforms, she went straight to work on her full-length debut. Recorded in Nashville with guitarist Todd Lombardo (Kacey Musgraves, Randy Travis, Elle King), Chameleon fleshes out and urbanizes her sound into something more adult alternative-oriented but still warmly organic. Mila brings to mind artists like Musgraves and especially Madison Cunningham on particularly tuneful entries like “I Wasn’t Gonna” and “Somebody New,” a song that, like much of the album, balances compassion and awareness. Its lively, full-band arrangement and light synth accents enliven her otherwise pastoral sound. She also includes a couple subtly countrified selections in “Let Me In,” where she allows a touch of drawl into her delivery, and opening song “Like Only Lovers Could,” a richly harmonized vocal track accompanied mainly by fingerstyle guitar and minimal cello and electronics. Later, “Rosie” is a strings-augmented singer/songwriter ballad about a household member who, in the tradition of the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home,” just up and leaves (“She didn’t even leave a note/Before she took the train”). Every slight style variation here not only falls within a limited palette and tone range but is similarly charming, no small thanks to Mila’s knack for beguiling melodies. Adding another level of cohesion, the idea for Chameleon‘s title track came from the songwriter noticing that a friend would often adapt to please others; when Mila noticed this tendency in herself, the concept took on a broader application that, while multifaceted, helps infuse the album with poignancy. When Chameleon‘s longest and most suspenseful track, sparse closer “The City,” repeatedly returns amid philosophical reflections to the couplet “But the city saves a tale/About everyone,” it’s a finishing stroke on a rewarding debut. — AMG

Track List:
01 - Like Only Lovers Could
02 - Somebody New
03 - Chameleon
04 - Love Let Go
05 - I Wasn’t Gonna
06 - It’s True
07 - Let Me In
08 - In Between
09 - Rosie
10 - The City


Media Report:
Genre: americana
Origin: Netherlands
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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