Picastro - Red Your Blues
(Pehr)
Mere minutes into Picastro's Red Your Blues, I was intrigued. The album begins with a quiet guitar and drums, along with cello notes slipping subtly up the scale. This goes on long enough to create some curiosity about what will happen, then the music shifts and becomes a slightly more conventional song, with vocals, guitar, violin, and drums. These four instruments (cello, drums, violin, and guitar) make up Picastro--it's a fairly unique combination for a band, and a good one. The instruments work well together to create the signature mood of the album, a foreboding, intense feeling that is sometimes slightly uncomfortable. Although you could say the majority of the album feels this way, there are many moments on the album that are a bright contrast.
The cello attracts much attention. Rachel McBride makes it slide, picks it cheerfully, or saws it with vigor. The cello is dynamic, and Zak Hanna's guitar work often complements it, since it can be shrill and dissonant or clean and light. I like songs like "No Name," in which these instruments together bring out the sturdiness of the cello and the fragility of the guitars. Evan Clarke's drums, although not heard as often, are nice for some sort of stability in the unsteady music. Liz Hysen's voice often sounds like low mumbling. The first time I listened to Red Your Blues I wasn't sure what to think, but now I can't imagine another style of singing I would prefer on the album.
Actually, Red Your Blues is a lot like Liz's voice. It may take some getting used to if you are used to pretty pop or if you are expecting it from this album. Get ready for songs like "Night of Long Knives," a track of sound made with stringed instruments but actually sounds like some sort of strange machinery; or "Five Cent Church," which varies from discordant and noisy to eerily calm and which conjures images of creaky houses and shadowy corners. Don't be afraid, though, the strange but beautiful mix of instruments and sounds on Red Your Blues just might intrigue you enough to venture there.
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