Susanna's List of Lights and Buoys was one of my favorite records of 2004; her deep, reverberating voice and the band's glitchy, indie-rock-via-jazz compositions possessed a passive longing — Cat Power without the internalized violence — that was perfectly suited to my own undirected, post-undergrad ennui.
Flowers of Evil — a covers record, though it includes two originals — lacks that power. It begins with a version of Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak," which Susanna changes from a rallying cry into a plaintive dirge. She essays the quiet urgency of Johnny Cash's version of Trent Reznor's "Hurt," wherein the world-weary soldier saddles up for one more destructive attempt at freedom.
Although the sparse piano chords set the right mood, her voice is too angelic to pull off the grief she's trying to suggest; the song is meant to simmer with the singer's ironic distance. Her version becomes a silly game of dress-up: cute but awkward. The rest of the album continues in this vein — Prince, Tom Petty, and even Nico (a singer Susanna actually has something in common with) all get tried on and ultimately misinterpreted.
