Women & Children overbored
Women And Children
Paralyzed Dance, Tonight
(Narnack)
California, Canada, and France conspire behind the year’s most despondent debut.
Maybe despondent isn’t the right word; nor is bleak. Women And Children sound bored stiff on Paralyzed Dance, Tonight, as if someone straitjacketed them to a padded wall and set The Velvet Underground & Nico on repeat at a low volume. In a musical landscape where who sticks out most gets the attention, Women And Children are the antithesis, so startlingly numb and cloudy and gray they become wholly effective. At considerable odds with this is the obsessiveness and violence lurking in the lyrics (“If I find you I’ll hold on,” “I must take flight and kill all whom death will embrace”), haughty one-finger salutes to bands obsessed with dressing dreariness in Beach Boy orchestrations. Redemption seems to rise in Cheryl June Serwa’s solliliaqual “Sweet Spirit,” though it’s the specter of Lou Reed closing out “Rolly Fingers” and leaving the heaviest footprint.
— Steve Forstneger
Click here to download “Born TP.”
wow, i ‘m very surprised by the last comment, i’ve heard this album and find quite the opposite. Alot of musical joy, beautiful songs weaving from rock to folk to country to blues… tons of surprising instrumental accentuation like organ and violin on ‘ugly’ , toy pianos and bowed guitar on “your honor”, accapella’s, recitals, dirges, 50’s rock, folk finger guitar picking with whispery spirits sliding through etc. etc.. I found this music to be really orginal and uplifting without trying to be “new” or “arty”. the female vocals are heartbreaking and i’ve never heard anyone with a voice like the guys. In short a wonderful surprise.