Mick Mercer gives a good review to dark Pagan-folk outfit Omnia’s latest CD “Alive!” despite its occasional lapses into “hippie” territory.
“Quite apart from the fact this is Omnia’s easiest-access album which means nobody need be put off by any Pagan worries (as in it might be dodgy folk music), it is quite the loveliest presentation of a CD I have ever seen … A wonderful and quite unusual album, this is both supremely confident and at the same time utterly modest and unassuming, assuming you will be be open-minded enough to let it entrance you. “
Review sites across the board seem fond of Siouxsie Sioux’s first solo effort “Mantaray”. Pitchfork says: “its a success, without doubt”, Vanity Fair calls “Mantaray”: “beguiling, contrary, mysterious, and rocking”, and Rolling Stone thinks its one darn tough album from the punk/post-punk/goth veteran.
“Goth-punk goddess Siouxsie Sioux hasn’t sounded this tough since the Banshees fell apart more than a decade ago … with all her cities in dust, Siouxsie concentrates all her eccentric music powers on her first solo album ever, one where you don’t have to keep telling yourself “but it’s Siouxsie” to pay attention.”
Matthew Perpetua at Fluxblog echoes my own feelings about P.J. Harvey’s amazing new album “White Chalk”.
“White Chalk is a mood piece for sure, but it’s also a careful, nuanced work that rewards close listening. Klein may be correct that it is not suitable as all-purpose background noise, but he fails to realize that this is in fact an indication that the album has succeeded on its own terms. The point of White Chalk is to transport the listener into the world of Harvey’s characters, and it is remarkably effective in doing so. It’s meant to be a window into other lives, not yet another mirror to gaze upon ourselves, or a blanket of ambient sound to keep us from feeling uncomfortable in silence.”
Meanwhile, one of my favorite bands, M83, has been getting lukewarm reviews for their new release “Digital Shades Volume #1″. Pop Matters feels that this more ambient-focused series may be seen as “a footnote in an otherwise impressive catalogue”, while Stylus Magazine accuses the band of “succumbing to laziness”. I’ll have to listen to it myself, before passing any judgment.
In a final note, check out the ever-witty and entertaining wrap-up of Germany’s 2007 Wave Gotik Treffen festival by England’s own Uncle Nemesis.
“The Wave Gotik Treffen must seem like a strange and surreal thing to most people from the UK - and, perhaps, to people from many other locations around the world. Why? Well, in a nutshell, because it’s gothic, and it’s big. Here in the UK, our once cutting-edge goth scene - don’t laugh, it really did look like the future back in 1982 or thereabouts - has now more or less dwindled to a small social circuit, based around DJ-driven clubs that play eighties chart hits and familiar, no-brainer floor-fillers for an increasingly ageing dress-up-and-party crowd. By and large, the denizens of the UK goth scene take little interest in music from any other area or era. That’s assuming they take any interest in music at all, of course. That in itself seems like an assumption too far sometimes. Set against that, the sheer scale, diversity, and no-shit success of the WGT seems positively unreal.”
That is it for now…
