Black Tape For A Blue Girl - The Scavenger Bride
Dramatic goth's masters deliver a disc that's great (though occasionally falls a little Flatley).
Sam Rosenthal's team of gloom-miners has produced an impressive disc that also happens to be that most tormented of beasts, the concept album. Duchamp and Kafka are the album's main components, but Sonic Youth, Klaus Kinski and others get mentions, too. Slightly over-the-top? Indeed. But when you're talking about one of the longest-established goth soundtrack groups still releasing credible work today, that's pretty much par for the course.
A reasonable amount of the album sounds fairly mid-Cure in its approach - not that this is a bad thing. A Livery Of Bachelors is a great example: synth-heavy, vaguely Eastern melody lines and subtle percussion dominate. Occasionally-histrionic vocals aside - and there is a fair bit of doubletracking here - it's a curiously enfolding sound that sweeps the listener along. Indeed, tunes like The Lie Which Refuses To Die are at once more masterful and more affecting than anything Robert Smith has knocked out for the better part of a decade.
The more classically-influenced side of the album is revealed on tracks like Das Liselottenbett, a simple instrumental piece that brings to mind the slow, elegiac stylings of David Darling's solo cello work, or Gavin Bryars's compositions. It's here that the ensemble's strength comes through: although Black Tape For A Blue Girl have long been channelling sadness into their music, it's never more successful than when manipulated into simple, direct themes like this. There's no embellishment, no woe-is-me bullshit. There's a rawness here that overrides the echoes and waves of bass-heavy noise - and it's highly immersive. It's still fairly dark, but there's much less pretension than expected - another boon!
Unfortunately, The Scavenger Bride occasionally veers a little towards the Riverdance or Enya side of the stage, detracting slightly from the emotional power of the work. It's woefully difficult to avoid the Celtic cheese associations that come with portions of BTFABG's instrumental palette - add some eerie flute and a bit of depth and hey presto, it's Titanic soundtrack time - but to their credit, the ensemble do not linger on Flatley ground too long. It's often at these points that Athan Maroulis's vocals stand out the most. If there is a weakness with this disc - and it's pretty hard to pick one, such is the quality - it's that Maroulis's voice seems overly soupy for the work; he often sounds like he's on day-leave from Phantom Of The Opera.
That aside, BTFABG have produced what may be their strongest album. It's certainly cohesive, and though I don't think the concept behind the disc completely works, the effort involved in translating the concept to reality has come together in a delightful way. If you've ever written BTFABG off as dodgy goth soundscaping, this is the album that'll change your mind.
This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.
Sam Rosenthal's team of gloom-miners has produced an impressive disc that also happens to be that most tormented of beasts, the concept album. Duchamp and Kafka are the album's main components, but Sonic Youth, Klaus Kinski and others get mentions, too. Slightly over-the-top? Indeed. But when you're talking about one of the longest-established goth soundtrack groups still releasing credible work today, that's pretty much par for the course.A reasonable amount of the album sounds fairly mid-Cure in its approach - not that this is a bad thing. A Livery Of Bachelors is a great example: synth-heavy, vaguely Eastern melody lines and subtle percussion dominate. Occasionally-histrionic vocals aside - and there is a fair bit of doubletracking here - it's a curiously enfolding sound that sweeps the listener along. Indeed, tunes like The Lie Which Refuses To Die are at once more masterful and more affecting than anything Robert Smith has knocked out for the better part of a decade.
The more classically-influenced side of the album is revealed on tracks like Das Liselottenbett, a simple instrumental piece that brings to mind the slow, elegiac stylings of David Darling's solo cello work, or Gavin Bryars's compositions. It's here that the ensemble's strength comes through: although Black Tape For A Blue Girl have long been channelling sadness into their music, it's never more successful than when manipulated into simple, direct themes like this. There's no embellishment, no woe-is-me bullshit. There's a rawness here that overrides the echoes and waves of bass-heavy noise - and it's highly immersive. It's still fairly dark, but there's much less pretension than expected - another boon!
Unfortunately, The Scavenger Bride occasionally veers a little towards the Riverdance or Enya side of the stage, detracting slightly from the emotional power of the work. It's woefully difficult to avoid the Celtic cheese associations that come with portions of BTFABG's instrumental palette - add some eerie flute and a bit of depth and hey presto, it's Titanic soundtrack time - but to their credit, the ensemble do not linger on Flatley ground too long. It's often at these points that Athan Maroulis's vocals stand out the most. If there is a weakness with this disc - and it's pretty hard to pick one, such is the quality - it's that Maroulis's voice seems overly soupy for the work; he often sounds like he's on day-leave from Phantom Of The Opera.
That aside, BTFABG have produced what may be their strongest album. It's certainly cohesive, and though I don't think the concept behind the disc completely works, the effort involved in translating the concept to reality has come together in a delightful way. If you've ever written BTFABG off as dodgy goth soundscaping, this is the album that'll change your mind.
This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.
Labels: album reviews
