Arden, North Carolina (November 12, 2021) — Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters have been releasing music from their upcoming collection since April, each month juxtaposing two songs that embody the collection’s overarching, two-sided theme of The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea. This month, the Americana/Country outfit from Western North Carolina draws closer to the culmination of this “deconstructed album” with “Eurydice” and “Lessons In Gravity.”
Platt, known for her songwriting, looks to Greek mythology for The Devil half of this month’s release.
“‘Eurydice’ is kind of a reimagining of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice… I’ve always thought that story was so interesting because of the technicality of Orpheus having to keep his eyes away from Eurydice’s face in order to save her from the underworld,” she says. “There’s something there about knowledge and innocence that strikes me as being a little Eden-esque.”
In the chorus, she sings:
Aw Eurydice,
it don’t seem fair
if I can’t look upon your face
how will I know you’re really there?
What am I not supposed to see?
What is that darkness in your dreams?
My darling I believe
it’s not loneliness you fear,
it’s your own heart that keeps you here
Platt adds, “I was excited to get my brother, Andrew Platt, to play some guitar on this one as well as my dad, Mark Platt.”
The second song, “Lessons In Gravity,” is one Platt started years ago, like other songs in The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea collection. “I can’t remember exactly what started it, but I was going through a hard time and I kept reminding myself that I was experiencing a lesson in gravity,” Platt says. “I’ve been wanting to record it with the band for a long time but it never made the cut.”
Describing misconstrued dreams and the realities of life, Platt sings:
This is not a tragedy
it’s just a lesson in gravity
if the sky remains a mystery
I’d like nothing more than for this to be my home
Listen to “Eurydice” and “Lessons In Gravity” HERE.
About Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters
Lyrically driven, the songs of Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters blend the band’s old-school country roots attitude with their shared influences of rock and folk. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Amanda Anne Platt is a storyteller by nature with an incredible band backing her. Performing along with Platt, The Honeycutters are Matt Smith on pedal steel and guitar; Rick Cooper on bass, guitar and vocals; and Evan Martin on drums, piano, organ and harmony vocals.
There is an empathetic and charming wit ingrained in Platt’s songwriting. She has a knack for accessing a deep well of emotion and applying it to her story-telling, whether she is writing from her own experiences or immersing herself into the melody of emotions in another person’s life.
Music City Roots’ Craig Havighurst writes, “She’s soothing (even in the hurtin’ songs) and sobering (except for the drinkin’ songs) and nuanced… I’d be hard pressed to find a finer string of recordings from any band working in the classic country/mountain tradition in these last five years.”
A homegrown entity, the band is critically acclaimed locally, regionally, nationally, as well as overseas. Their prior album Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters [Organic Records 2017] placed #2 (sandwiched between Jason Isbell and Gregg Allman) in their regional radio station WNCW’s year end listeners poll for 2017. The station’s Music Director Martin Anderson said to No Depression, “Amanda Platt writes songs on par with Lucinda, Isbell, Lauderdale, Hank Sr. In my opinion, anyway.”
“This is a band that does everything right,” says Goldmine’s Mike Greenblatt. “Platt deserves all that might come to her over this, her fifth (and best) album. Backed by pedal steel, electric guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, and vocal harmony, it’s Platt’s show as she writes, sings and co-produces. Complete with lyrics of introspection with the kind of words you can chew on long after the album ends, it also works on a lighter level by dint of the fact that it just sounds
Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters received a shout out from Fodor’s Travel Magazine in a write-up about the band’s hometown of Asheville, NC, and a couple of years back they were also featured on XPN World Cafe’s Sense of Place series. In 2017, their music also placed into the Americana Music Association Year End Top 100 list of Americana Airplay for the second year in a row.