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Blonde RedheadMisery Is A Butterfly 4AD/Remote Control/Inertia Breaking down the personnel in NYC trio Blonde Redhead makes for an interesting dissection. Japanese singer Kazu Makino employs a unique cadence, her voice echoing an oriental feline: a pretty half-woman dragon. Italian identical twins Amedeo and Simone Pace (guitar and drums) are rhythmic, processional. Amedeo's singing voice mirrors Makino's; their guitar interplay splits in two like a Faberge egg. As partners, musically and otherwise, Amedeo and Makino have pushed their band into a new realm. The Sonic Youth-tinged damaged art rock from their first four records has slowly morphed into a stylised cosmopolitan masterwork. 2000's 'A Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons', their last record for Touch & Go was the first to display their baroque leanings. The guitars and drums never sounded so graceful, so modernised, and at the same time antiquated. Four years and a record label switch later, Blonde Redhead have returned with their finest offering, a record which distills all the beauty, power and melancholy in their canon. Makino was thrown from a horse in 2002, requiring much medical attention to literally piece her back together. Lyrically, 'Misery Is A Butterfly' echoes the tragedy, with Makino and Pace constantly conjuring images of breaking, falling, rebirth. Elephant Woman and Equus, the songs that bookend the record, are most definitely well placed. Makino's vocal is more fragile yet more empowered than ever before. "Allow me to show you the way which I adore you," she sings to Pace on the closer with icy passion. Pace delivers more of his distinctive European melody lines, some of them played on his baritone guitar. He has a talent for turning chords into more than just sounds. Aided by Skuli Sverrisson on bass, Pace fashions delicate melodies that press on your skin and hang in the air for days. The title track, awash with stuttering drums, blooms into a bombastic centerpiece. String players Eyvind Kang and Jane Scarpantoni, both giants in their field, make the compositions even more ornate. The penultimate Pink Love is the only song to feature both singers. It's like peeking through a keyhole and seeing Pace and Makino kissing gently in a velvet room. It's beautifully confounding. The Television-style intro to Equus is the fastest thing on the record, capturing the band riding a giant horse into the clouds. 'Misery Is A Butterfly' is not just Blonde Redhead's best record yet: this year, in a world filled with symphonic rock music, this album will be hard to beat. |
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