Re: Cruel & Pretty + a little more album review

[DustyVolume <dustyvolume at yahoo_com>]

--- Ana Maria Correa <shoredancer at hotmail_com> wrote:
> But just off the top of my head, it reminds me of 
> magical realism and Garcia Marquez...transplanted to an America complete 
> with Seven Elevens.  ;)


Ana Maria, you took the words right out of my mouth!  The first time I heard
the opening lines, I thought, this  could have been pulled right out of "100
Years of Solitude."

I also can hear a future concert version that goes along the musical lines of
My Love is a Fever.  The song is so wordy, it would lend itself well to that
stream of consciousness--almost spoken word cadence.


> I love how the album is so full of brokenness and death, but with the 
> glimmers of light and redemption that come as a result...  It's like they 
> explore nearly every possible tenor of grief (even lilting sadness as in 
> this song).  My friend Sarah calls it a "hopeful sadness" rather than a 
> hopeless sadness...

I can appreciate this view, however more than just the lyrics, I feel that the
overarching tone of the music is still slow over all.  And by slow, I mean the
pedestrian definition--the music is just not upbeat on a lot of the songs. 
There are exceptions, but I'm only speaking of my general feeling after
listening to the thing all the way through a few times.  I have to say, though,
that Idea #21 really goes a long way in brightening up the mood of the work.  I
can sense a meandering of emotion through both discs.  The first track starts
out with "You're making a mess", and the last track leaves us with hope in
"It's not too late."  Somewhere in the middle, we get the death, abuse,
hopelessness and grief that I was referring to yesterday as sadness.  In other
words, I see the two discs as running the gamit of everything in between those
two points, and this is what really makes this a cohesive work.  Overall, I
haven't been lifted back up in the end as much as I would have liked to have
been.  Maybe this is more a reflection of me than the artists.  My reactions
are still changing daily, even hourly as I listen to Ohio.  This may not make
sense to anyone now, but I *am* still formulating the ideas in my head.

Mark


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