Trip-hop, late 70s-early 1980s New Wave ala Blondie and angsty 1990’s verve may sound like an unlikely confluence of artistic debts, but Australian-born singer/songwriter Amanda Easton pulls it off. She’s an established national phenomenon in her native country with two full-length albums and three EP’s providing the building blocks for a longer discography to come. Make no mistake – posterity shines its preserving light on Easton’s music and she’s here to stay. Her new EP release Drama and DooWops rates among her best work yet and should curry enormous favor with a global audience.
URL: https://amandaeaston.com/
A smattering of organ gives way to an extended hi-hat flourish to open “Dog Eared Drama”. It’s an intensely theatrical piece culled from the EP’s retro frame of reference with a strong strand of blues running through the piece. Easton layers his lyrics with significant detail that never risks obscuring its universality. Straddling the border between the personal and every day isn’t easy, but Easton succeeds with burning passion and vivid intelligence.
“Me as I Am” steers listeners deeper into 1950s-style territory with the EP’s first pure “vintage” track. Easton invokes the spirit of music from that pivotal post-WW2 period without ever mimicking any particular artist of the era – build a time machine, copy Easton’s music over to some records, go back to 1955, and songs such as “Me as I Am” slot in well with the times. The guitar playing boasts elegant simplicity and a warm, lyrical sound while the pipe organ providing color proves to be an integral part of fleshing out this song.
Some may hear unintended echoes of the music for Bob Dylan’s late classic Time Out of Mind in the arrangement and playing for “My Pick-Me-Up”. There’s none of the aforementioned releases’ swampy allure, however, but there’s a decidedly moodier tilt to this track than we experience with its predecessors. Easton seizes the moment. Her voice has a wide-ranging command that never veers into melodramatics and suits the arrangement well.
“Girl in the Sky Blue Ballgown” doesn’t owe its success to bygone forms. This is pop music as high art, working to maximum effect on every level, rather than delivering on one or two strata and coasting in other areas. It’s a complete package. The nuanced, deeply felt gracefulness that Easton’s voice conveys throughout the performance will bedazzle all but the hardest of hearts. She has superb material to work with here.
The entire EP packs enough top-shelf songwriting to sustain a longer release. You can’t blame anyone for wondering what half-finished ideas or outtakes linger from the project. The finale “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” has inclinations towards pastiche, but Easton mitigates those characteristics thanks to another excellent lyric. It has a winning hook, the backing vocals are exceptional in every way, and the sax presence punctuates Drama and Doowop’s final moments in an appropriate fashion. It’s an exemplary release that comes out of left field in some ways, given her past, but still leaves you wanting more. Amanda Easton has a keeper on her hands.
Garth Thomas