Los Angeles' sultry singing-songwriting kitten Eleni Mandell is proving that the sixth time's the charm with her gorgeous new LP. Literate, well-paced, and graceful, Miracle joins Mandell's five oher full-length releases and solidifies the artist's place on the pedestal of indie goddesses, alongside femme fatales like PJ Harvey and NIco.

With a set of pipes as alluring as Cat Powers' and an apparently deep admiration for Tom Waits, Mandell carves herself a lonesome highway somewhere between the Heartbreak Hills and Whiskey Peninsula. The album's opening spong, "Moonglow, Lamp Low," is the sort of sweetly soft, strummy tune that is best hummed to oneself on the back porch during a long summer night, and most of the tracks follow suit. Because the vocals were recorded solo - the band was dubbed later - Mandell's smoky croon is the centrepiece of every song, injecting inimacy and warmth throughout. "Make-Out King" is a brilliant and wry anti-love tune, and "Beautiful"'s dark corners scratch at Mandell's feelings for the masterful Waits. The loping country flair of the closing song "Miss Me," will probably cause the listener to do just that - and all we can do is wear out our copies of Miracle until Mandell blesses us with her next project.
- Erin Meister