The Occasion - s/t
(Say Hey)
“The Midwife,” the leadoff track on this NYC quintet’s debut, shows a subtle fascination with the vocal and compositional stylings of Leonard Cohen, as does the shuffling, delicate “Dulcimer’s Fancy,” the latter featuring a particularly memorable walking bassline from Marlon Sporer. The multi-layered harmonies also add a nice Wilsonesque (as in Brian) touch to the mix. These leadoff tracks also evince more than a passing fancy with the quirky pop side of Luna. The aggressive, hyperkinetic stalker “I Can’t Stop Falling” tears a page out of the John Cale cookbook, particularly his angry, “Guts”/”Sabotage” period. He’d be wise to contact these guys for his next CBGB’s gig.
I also like the short burst of aggressive tension in “The Deserters” and the sleepy, morose downer “Smoke and Mirrors,” which can also hold its head high amidst the best of Dean Wareham’s confessionals. The short album wraps with a live version of “Annika,” a snarling, throbbing, haunted house screamalong that tongue-in-cheekily melds Gordon Gano and the Violent Femmes to Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers for a theatrical haunted hayride that threatens to rip your heart right out of your chest! A bit OVERLY melodramatic, perhaps, but the Goth kids and you old Swans and Bauhaus fans will love it, and it adds an intriguing new dimension to this band, simulatneously suggesting they could be more than a one trick pony and a bitchin’ live attraction to boot.
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