Softly sung set of songs from promising young singer/songwriter.
Amanda Grace Schiano, a well-travelled lady now based in Athens, Georgia, is Clover County. Her debut album, given a distribution boost by Thirty Tigers and featuring sensitive production from Carrie K, follows a 2024 EP, which she partly promoted with a gig opening for Lord Huron at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Her voice fits in with the gentle but punchy timbres of Kacey Musgraves, Megan Moroney, or This Is The Kit.
‘Anywhere’ begins the 12-song set with a softly strummed acoustic pop song about “not going anywhere…after everything we’ve been through”; it recalls Keira Knightley’s vocals in the movie “Begin Again”, as does ‘Sweeter’, a love song written after a breakup, which tosses in some banjo to undercut how her ex’s “teeth hurt”. ‘Good Game’, meanwhile, opens with a funky riff that sets up a kiss-off that is nonetheless sugared by “boy, I believe in you”, while on ‘Stranger Danger’ Schiano admits to a restless nature and wards off a boy from loving her.
Wanting and being in love is more on her mind than falling out of it. ‘Virginia Slim’, featuring a fluttering violin melody, compares her cigarette-like status to her fella’s “hand-rolled” one; “I used to be a junkie for love but I’m planning on giving it up” tells us where her heart is. Over three cycled chords, ‘Whiskey Cherry’ knowingly piles up the clichés before achieving catharsis with a chorus about Coca-Cola and cigarettes with their “golden embers”.
‘Yours Too’ is a list of mutually held wishes Schiano has for a relationship; a different vocalist would declaim it more boldly, but her style encourages the listener to lean in. ‘Midnight Crow’ is a delightful song of fidelity: “you whistle your tunes from dusk to dawn…that’s the beauty of a destiny”.
‘Angels’ has the self-referential line “I can’t keep praying on a clover” amid her hopes that a long-distance love can be brought closer to her. There’s some mandolin on ‘Cadillac’, another song with an instantly melodic chorus and yearning vocal that demands repeated listens. Ditto the rhythmic ‘Paradise Rd.’, where she sings that “distance makes your heart grow fonder” over the album’s most urgent backing track.
‘Blue Suede Eyes’ is a tribute to her dad, who worked in radio. Schiano paints a picture of a room with a poster of Elvis and records and trophies lining the walls, asking “where did the boy go?” at the top of her vocal range over a pedal steel accompaniment. Thanks to these dozen excellent tunes, that man’s daughter is doing his memory proud.
