CD Reviews

Shivaree

Tainted Love: Mating Calls and Fight Songs | Zoe

By MIKAEL WOOD | July 30, 2007

3.0 Stars

In a witty liner-notes essay included in this NYC-based avant-cabaret outfit’s new collection of 11 left-field covers, singer Ambrosia Parsley dedicates her readings to the notion that “one of the many universal truths about love is, of course, that it’s strange.” Anyone who’s ever heard Shivaree’s previous recordings — each a spooky, beautiful little thing — knows that Parsley has held this opinion for years. On Tainted Love, her apparent goal was to replace each tune’s dominant emotion with its opposite, thereby illuminating love’s propensity to turn its victims into unwitting creatures of confusion. Instead of anticipatory zeal, for example, Shivaree’s version of Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough” offers uncertain dread. And a roots-noir take on Mötley Crüe’s “Looks That Kill” takes its femme-fatale metaphor at face value. The music surrounding Parsley’s cartoon croon changes throughout Tainted Love, from fuzzy rock to ambient R&B. (The band’s drowsy performance on R. Kelly’s “Half on a Baby” perhaps takes Parsley’s interest in the metaphysical slow jam a bit far.) Whatever the style, though, the singer’s devotion to devotion defines the material.

Topics: CD Reviews , Michael Jackson, Motley Crue, R. Kelly

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