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A Profoundly Atmospheric Journey![]() ![]() ![]() Pretty & Twisted: Pretty & Twisted (Warner Bros.)
When Johnette Napolitano was the leader of Concrete Blonde, the gruff power trio with a heart of gold, few observers paid much attention to her occasional musical flings with ex-members of Roxy Music and Wall of Voodoo. Sure, Concrete Blonde's two biggest hits, "Joey" and "Caroline," were moody mid-tempo rockers, but that didn't mean Napolitano had any real connection to the lush mystery of Bryan Ferry & Company's Avalon or the disturbed quirkiness of "Mexican Radio." So if Pretty & Twisted catches you by surprise, don't feel too bad. You couldn't have known that the debut disc by Napolitano's new group would not only be a collaboration between her and Wall of Voodoo guitarist/co-founder Marc Moreland, but that it would sound like a slice of dusky, mid-eighties British post-punk. Anachronistic as this album may be, it is Napolitano's best work since Concrete Blonde's 1990 commercial breakthrough, Bloodletting. From the opening parry of "The Highs Are Too High" to the tranquil haze of the final track, "Watching the Water," she takes listeners on a well-crafted and profoundly atmospheric journey. Along the way, there are plenty of odd collaborations. On "Come Away With Me," Napolitano turns an unused Janis Joplin lyric into the finest bittersweet Echo and the Bunnymen track that never was. On the other hand, "Singing Is Fire," her adaptation of a Charles Bukowski poem, seems forced, and "Stranger," co-written with Paul Westerberg, has only the Westerberg-penned bridge to recommend it.
With the exception of the bright, hopeful first single "!Ride!," the best numbers here are the darker ones: the bumpy, Concrete Blonde-like "No Daddy No"; the mesmerizing "Train Song (Edge of Desperation)"; and "Billy," a fiery message of comfort for a beautiful drag queen. While Pretty & Twisted benefits from Moreland's often searing guitar washes, it is Napolitano's Eno-esque production that deserves the majority of the credit for the album's alluring sound. Napolitano may not have blazed any new ground, but she has forged an album that is as seductive as anything she did with Concrete Blonde. -- Bob Remstein |
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