Review: EmiSunshine Shares the Brightness of Her Being

EmiSunshine/Diamonds/ independent
3.5 Out of Five Stars

At best, child stars are often seen as some sort of novelty. At worst, they’re given a timestamp, one suggesting that sudden fame will find them quickly fading away once they reach maturity.

Happily, EmiSunshine has managed to avoid those pitfalls. Although she started singing at age three and formally began her career at the incredibly tender age of nine, she’s managed to rack up ongoing success in the decade since. Now only 17, she can include appearances on “Today,” “Little Big Shots,” “American Idol,” “WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour,” “Song of the Mountains,” and the Grand Ole Opry among her many accomplishments. Credit her upbringing as part of a musical family from East Tennessee, and a musical mindset that includes bluegrass, gospel, blues, rock, and old-time Americana as the additives that have helped shape her sound.

Of course, there will be those who are skeptical of her success. A young person—especially one with a happy handle like “EmiSunshine”—is sometimes treated with some dubious distinction. 

Nevertheless, her new album, Diamonds, might dissuade the notion that she has little more to offer than a sound that’s cute and cuddly. It finds her taking center stage and peering beyond a veneer made up entirely of innocent and innocuous songs. Opening track “After You’re Gone” offers a catchy chorus intermingled with cynicism and sarcasm, while “Dandelion” is decidedly creepy, centered on, of all things, a neighborhood cannibal.

Other tracks offer an adult perspective far from anything that remotely resembles an adolescent approach. “Dead Men Can’t Catcall” finds a woman taking revenge on those men who make degrading sexist comments. “Cheshire Grin” is about a woman forced to confront an abusive partner. “Josephine” and “Miss Anna” deal with the premature loss of loved ones and the heartbreak that follows in the wake of tragedy and tumult.

Nevertheless, the most telling tracks come through with the title tune, an upbeat narrative about affirmation and asserting possibilities even when the world seems to deny one’s dignity. 

Can’t you see the jewel you’re making, cut me down and you’re just shaping who I am and where I’m going…”

Likewise, the revelatory “Judgement Day” allows her the opportunity to express her frustration with the industry executives who hoped to shape her in an image that they believed might be more attuned to a mainstream audience. On the contrary, the rollicking “No One’s Gonna Change Me” reflects her reverence for her essential origins and down-home designs.

Admittedly, there’s a certain giddiness in her girlish vocals, which can’t help but betray her age and ebullience. Time and maturity will inevitably have an effect on that. Nevertheless, for now anyway, Diamonds can be considered an ambitious offering from an artist whose talent and ambition reside well beyond her years.