Mondo Amore, Nicole Atkins’ release in over two years, incorporates a range of styles that blend well throughout. Atkins’ songs are not sonically groundbreaking or revolutionary, but they have a vintage appeal. They sound like those that people growing up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s might already have in their vinyl collections.  While tracks such as “Cry Cry Cry” and “You Come to Me” channel mainstream southern rock characteristics with upbeat rhythms, ballads such as “Hotel Plaster”  have a soul and sound that Barbra Streisand probably wouldn’t mind putting her name to. With this contrast in mind, it seems as though she decided to take her favorite musical qualities from a handful of decades and creatively put them together.

While Mondo Amore has a few upbeat moments, it primarily feed off an undertone of seriousness and reality. Most songs exhibit the theme of human struggle, survival, and heartbreak; however, this consistent air of solemnity in her tracks is given warmth through the addition of subtle string arrangements. The perfect example of this is the true stand-out track of the album, “Vultures”.

Her songs have a way of magnifying the issues that most people deal with each day and telling a compelling story in the process. Besides the occasional musical “na na nas” and “la la las”, Atkins doesn’t waste words, making her message clear and direct. This depth and the channeling of inspiration from various musical points in time will make Nicole Atkins’ music appealing to the ears of twenty-something year old college students and a fifty-something year old parents. The tracks are simply timeless.