{"id":40730,"date":"2008-02-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/miracle-of-love\/"},"modified":"2008-02-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-04T00:00:00","slug":"miracle-of-love","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/miracle-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Miracle Of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Described a few years ago by New York Magazine as \u201cperhaps the best unsigned artist in the business,\u201d Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Eleni Mandell has carved a formidable niche for herself on the indie scene over the last decade, having released seven full-length albums, one EP and two 7\u201ds all from beyond the ties of the major media companies. 2007\u2019s <i>Miracle Of Five <\/i>is a stunning collection of warm, witty lo-fi tracks that weaves elegantly through the categories of blues, jazz and pop without skipping a beat. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Launching the album out is \u201cMoonglow, Lamp Low,\u201d on which Mandell\u2019s soulful, sultry voice unfolds like smoke to a backing of loose acoustic guitar strums (courtesy of newest bandmember, guitarist Jeremy Drake) and lovely saxophone soloing. \u201cMoonshine dreamtime\/all I need is a goldmine\/And true love\/Just like sugar in my coffee,\u201d she sings wistfully, making this whisper-weight song hit home with surprising intensity.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Next up, \u201cGirls\u201d is a sunny daydream of a track, sweet and catchy thanks to lines like \u201cI am a marble the color of candy\/I\u2019ll make you money whenever you\u2019re gambling\/I am the dice you roll in the alley\/I am the pennies that come in handy,\u201d delivered in crisp, evocative vocals that at times recall Ella Fitzgerald.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Produced by keyboardist Andy Kaulkin, the album is warmly intimate and colored through with wide-eyed optimism, seen in the bluesy rhythms and picturesque images of \u201cWings In His Eyes\u201d and the disc\u2019s title track, an ode to the wonderfully simple pleasure of holding someone\u2019s hand that has a shimmering, almost folk-pop feel. Meanwhile, \u201cSalt Truck\u201d builds upon the experience of navigating the highway during a harrowing snowstorm, using the metaphor of the salt truck that coated the slippery roads to spin a tale of uplifting hope, aided by the track\u2019s light flickers of guitar, solid drums from Kevin Fitzgerald and Ryan Feve\u2019s buoying bass.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Other standouts include the stark, smoky \u201cBeautiful,\u201d whose hushed instrumentation allows Mandell\u2019s voice, at its most seductive, to truly shine, and \u201cMy Twin,\u201d a dark, alluringly atmospheric offering that puts forth the possibility of an unmet soulmate dying in a plane crash. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><i>Miracle Of Five <\/i>is a memorable release that is from start to finish evocative, keenly articulated and above all affecting; this is one to buy, and Mandell remains one to watch.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8136],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40730","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eleni-mandell","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40730"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}