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After what appeared to be the beginning of a promising career—singing with her band Marry Me Jane, a year filming a show for VH1 that never saw the air, a major label deal and a record that never quite filled its promise—singer/songwriter Amanda Kravat, with all the emotional anxiety involved in giving up on a dream, left the music behind. But, as is often the case, the music isn’t always willing to stay behind. So after a hiatus to recover emotionally, mature and raise a family, she’s back with a new EP, AK.
As she puts it in an interview with The Huffington Post: “Being a wife and a mother was and is fulfilling and delicious. But it has nothing to do with standing in front of a kick drum and belting it out. Dancers need to dance, and I guess Amanda needs to sing.” Motivated by what she calls a series of “debilitating, infuriating panic attacks,” she began singing and writing again. And if her work on the EP is any indication of what she has to offer, welcome back.
Of course, a four-track EP may not a flower make, but it may well plant a seed. What the release does show is that with a song like “Not Myself Today,” written about the singer’s panic attacks—what she calls “the train wreck in my head”—is that Kravat can attack an emotional truth and rock it out. “I Could Tell You I Don’t Love You” shows her equally at home with an edgy ballad. Besides, where else would you get a song with a lyric like “calibrate the universe?”
The catchy “Wouldn’t Be This” and “Someone Else is Driving” complete the EP.
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