Let It Blurb

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More About

• Eason Bees
• Christy Hunt
• Lindsey Thomas
• The Go-Go's
• Cecile Cloutier

Ouija Radio's second album starts out promisingly enough with the jangly guitar gem "Old Victrola," rallying troops of Siouxsie fans with a fist-pumping cry of "Gonna raise the dead on a 78!" But the rest of the album is a cocktail of influences that loses its flavor as the night wears on. Slurp it down and you're left with the dregs of gloomy pop clichés: drippy candles, fallen angels, and absinthe. "Grace," which at first sounds like the Go-Go's covered by vampires, goes on twice as long as necessary to allow songstress Christy Hunt to moan dark-sider poetry like "Ashes blowing Solomon to flesh/Lest they affright thee the spirit takes its form." On the Cramps sound-alike "Whiskey Love," Hunt coos about drinking liquid fire, but it sounds like she's hardly even sipping; Lux Interior made us believe he mainlined the stuff. --Lindsey Thomas

Veteran TC guitarist Terry Eason dissects the vain, shallow, and ephemeral with melodic charm and verbal vitriol on the second part of his self-proclaimed "elephant-bee-fly" trilogy. "Who Died and Made You King?" asks one song title, and the overriding sentiments are disappointment ("the agony of the thrill defeated/the feeling that you've been cheated") and betrayal ("I scratch your back and you stab mine."). Even youthful bright days get lampooned most delightfully on the giddily biting XTC pastiche "Certain Limitations." But it's not all seething resentment or bitter 20/20 hindsight. "Hurricane Hill" looks back with a wistful, not withering, eye, and "Picture You and Me" is as sweet and optimistic a partnership proposal as you'll hear this year. --Cecile Cloutier