Letters to Cleo
Aurora Gory Alice (CherryDisc)
by Laura Kallio
photos by Trevor Whitaker
Letters to Cleo‘s first full-length CD leaves you distracted. A little confused. And yet, it remains comfortable, accessible. Hanley’s vocals travel from innocent, child-like tenderness to raw rage and back again without missing a beat. And then there’s the hard-hitting, rapid-fire delivery of “Here and Now” and “I See.”
Somehow, the ten songs on Aurora Gory Alice flow through the ever-changing vocal elements as well as variations between serious funk, folk, a poppy dance groove, psychedelia, Nirvanaesque distortion, and even a sort of twangy hoedown thang. And lately, they’ve mixed in a heavier, border-line metal sound, which is on display most notably in the song “Rim Shak.” Through it all – all the style changes, all the overlapping – LTC maintains a rare sort of anti-commercial grace. “It’s the mix of the band,” Eisenstein has said. “There is not a preconceived sound; it’s different.”
For a long time, Bostonians wondered why LTC hadn’t been signed to a major label. Even more surprising – why was their recording limited to Sister, LTC’s independently released 1991 cassette, and a two-song CherryDisc 7 inch released earlier this year? As Eisenstein put it last April, “We haven’t been taken to dinner by any record-company people. They haven’t even bought us a Coke yet.”
Definitely pick up a copy and check this band out in an intimate local setting while you still can.