Amanda's Miracle Is Her Voice

I review The Amanda Emblem Experiment's album and fall in love with 'Coconut Rum'.

The date of the miracle that Amanda sings about on ‘The Last Miracle’, the title song of The Amanda Emblem Experiment’s album, was December…

I'll remember forever

It's a pedantic song, a song which combines the harmonica and the guitar.

We were spectacular like aliens landing

Like money falling from the sky

Amanda is not the only one being pedantic here on the song. With his deep voice, a male vocalist waits until after two minutes forty five seconds to back Amanda up.

This combo reminds me of Taylor Swift’s ‘Coney Island’, featuring The National, with the difference being that Amanda has more singing parts than the male vocalist on ‘The Last Miracle’.

Amanda carries her lethargic, if not patient, voice into ‘110 Fahrenheit'. The voice is melodious and spiritual that this could be a worship song.

When she was young, Amanda sings, she didn't know a thing, but when she had to work, when she was grown, she had to learn.

How can I measure this life? I feel so warm. It feels so good

The good thing about the song is whatever part Amanda sings, she always returns to the chorus.

Track number three, ‘Streamtrain', has the electric guitar greeting us.

Amanda's greatest asset is her melodious voice. You feel like she can magically sing about the most mundane thing in the world.

Oh, streamtrain!

‘We used to travel together’, she sings. Is she here singing about the train or a lover affair?

We've gotta run to catch up with the sun, Amanda sings on ‘Lucky’. Here Amanda sings about the fun they had when they used to go school, only for that fun to be taken away from them, making place for the industrial grind.

At this juncture, and from the past few songs, I note that no lvocalist accompanies Amanda.

While ‘Lucky’ can be read as Amanda complaining about how unlucky it was for their fun days to be taken away from them, the singer notes that she's luckier than others.  Moreover, she's realistic about life: she understands that life is all about, if not more about, the grind.

On albums about love, I'm always like: why do musicians only sing about love? On albums that almost have no love songs like ‘The Last Miracle’, I'm always interested when one pops up.

‘Where are we gonna be in the next fifteen years?’ asks Amanda on ‘Summer Of Love’.

Listening to ‘Coconut Rum' felt like dejavu. That's because on Twitter, I'm always asking for new music. When Amanda came across my tweet, she sent me a link of ‘Coconut Rum'. I was intrigued by a white Australian singing reggae.

This is my favourite track  off the album. I was singing along to ‘Coconut rum, coconut rum, coconut rum' while reviewing it. (Instead of drinking it, if you will 😃)

I believe Amanda can sing almost any genre.

Her family makes bad coconut rum, I take Amanda to be singing on the song. On the other hand, her big brother, who hates work, gave her some rum, the story, or song, goes. (Everybody seems to be giving her coconut rum).

One Saturday, Amanda goes out and meets this guy, who brings coconut rum with. He shares his rum with  Amanda.

We can read this as a love song, for the rum made Amanda lose control of her tongue, made her dance, made her laugh, made her undress and made her want to kiss the guy’s lips.

If accompanying vocalists are absent up to this point, a male vocalist with a deep voice, joins Amanda on ‘Coconut Rum'.

There's a couple of things Amanda sings about choosing not to do on ‘Not Swimming', but I can hardly hear those things. It's a jumbled song, Amanda singing about maintaining her mood and concentration.

With a song title like ‘Poor Old Bones’, you expect the song to be about senility. But here Amanda starts with whiskey, women and cigarettes and sings in passing about ‘history not in the books'. Ancient memory is forgotten, Amanda sings, and ‘young ones come into play'.