It has been 23 years since Amanda Marshall put out a new album.<\/p>\n
Think about that for a moment. The last time she released any music (2001\u2019s Everybody\u2019s Got A Story<\/i>) Train\u2019s \u201cDrops of Jupiter\u201d was #1. It was the year defined by 9\/11. The first Harry Potter movie was the #1 movie of the year.<\/p>\n
So what the hell took so long?<\/p>\n
Well, there was a long-standing legal entanglement with a former manager. As Marshall herself put it once that was over, \u201cNo one was waiting for this album.\u201d She took the time to be creative and really get to what she wanted to say, because no one was standing over her demanding the product; she was lucky enough to be able to get by on the royalties from her three Canadian mega-hit albums.<\/p>\n
Heavy Lifting<\/i>, therefore, is a work coming from an older, wiser artist. Much of it is also laden\u2014dare I say drenched\u2014with a much funkier feel, almost dabbling in the late 1970s Philadelphia sound. I dare anyone who listens to \u201cI\u2019m Not Drunk,\u201d with its lush, jamming horns, not to at least tap their feet while laughing (funky AND funny is the order of the day).<\/p>\n
The interesting thing, however, is this: Amanda Marshall has always had a decent amount of social consciousness, willing to talk musically about growing up mixed-race in Canada and about domestic abuse. On Heavy<\/i>, we are past \u201cdecent amount\u201d and into \u201cscathingly pissed off\u201d\u2014which is, for me, pretty damn satisfying.<\/p>\n
The aforementioned \u201cI\u2019m Not Drunk\u201d does have some satisfyingly funny lines in it\u2014but also has some painful examination about losing love and trying to pretend nothing\u2019s wrong. \u201cRainbows And Gasoline\u201d is a musical photograph of the moment where someone wades out of the gaslighting and realizes that yes, they are being abused\u2014and \u201cI Built This House\u201d and \u201cServes You Right\u201d takes the story further into freedom and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cHalfway Love\u201d lets Marshall show off her rock and roll chops to good result. \u201cSpecial\u201d seems to be a direct shot at her ex-manager and men like him, with a cautionary tale against \u201ctalent agents\u201d and their ilk. <\/p>\n
There are a couple of tracks that are less than stellar, however. Interestingly enough, it\u2019s the first track\u2014\u201cI Hope She Cheats\u201d\u2014and the last, \u201cHonest.\u201d The energy seems lower; it\u2019s as if somehow she couldn\u2019t muster the anger and power present in the rest of the album.<\/p>\n
I could say something pithy and wise here, but I\u2019ll settle on this: damn, I\u2019m glad Amanda Marshall is back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5711],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46662","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-amanda-marshall","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46662","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46662"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46662"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}