Calibretto
Dead By Dawn
Standard Recording Company
I’d never listened to Calibretto before receiving this album to review. Apparently they’ve taken a darker, more ominous turn this time around, but it’s kind of hard to tell. The opener, “Come See the Meatboy,” features an extended sample of sinister laughter from Evil Dead 2 (that film’s subtitle also being this album’s namesake) behind some off-kilter, frenetic circus waltz-punk. “Bleeding on the Floor” is rhythmically the same as the first track, but it’s saved from monotony by singer Joseph Whiteford’s helium heightened Gordon Gano wail. The two best songs, however, are the happy, scrappy hero pop of “When I Think About You” and “American Psycho” (an ode to the book and film of the same name, complete with lifted dialogue from the film for the song’s intro and outro).
Even with these invigorating songs, Calibretto are too precious to be threatening and too morbid to be playful. The end result is twee-rated Murder City Devils songs played by a keyboard happy Violet Femmes, which actually is kind of scary if you think about it.
Standard Recording Company: http://www.standardrecording.com/ • Calibretto: http://www.calibretto.com/
