Madder Rose
Hello June Fool (Thirsty Ear)
by Dave Liljengren
Hello June Fool, Madder Rose‘s fourth CD in six years, is so comprehensive in its lush, narco-pop vision, so polished in the quality of its trippish, expansive production, and so hookably accessible in its songwriting, that it makes me feel ancient. I saw them struggle through a set six long years ago in a storied Seattle dive called, The Off Ramp. In those simpler days of CMJ ascendant, Madder Rose was but one bloom in a spring garden of melodic indie pop bands with intriguing female vocalists. When MR failed to thrill after one live set, and it could easily have been an off-night, I unwisely decided to limit my live interests in the genre to the half dozen or so other bands – Throwing Muses, Belly, Velocity Girl, The Walkabouts, etc. – who fit similar descriptions and were then being praised to the skies by the media. I’m now certain I missed out on the growth and maturation of a first-rate band.
There is a visual quality to this work and particularly to the title track. In it, the crystalline vocals of Mary Lorson guide listeners through a staggered, dimly-lit, saga. Reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue” in its length and crisp portrayal of a fractious storyline, but not in its subject matter, the song summons picturesque reverie, as if it were a soundtrack deferred. “Build some cinema around me,” the ditty seems to cry, “transpose my autumnal sounds into film and set me in a noirish work of love and death, long shadows, Soho lofts, herbal teas, and pre-dawn hangovers.”
Much of the early praise for this New York City band came from NME and other British press sources. MR takes a cue this time out from the Morcheebas, the Beth Ortons, the Sneaker Pimps, and all the other electronicats in the country of their initial acclaim, embedding suggestions of mechanized funk grooves at the base of their guitar-generated, atmospheric songscapes. The result is an ambling, delicious, aural ambrosia which moves at the speed of a resting heartbeat as it chronicles the emotional complexities encountered by a restless heart.
Ebbing and flowing like the tides of the moon or the systolic and diastolic readings on an internal sphygmometer, Hello June Fool, takes us through the many splendors of honest pain. Bittersweet from the beginning and melodic to the end, these 12 songs can serve as the 12 steps in a personal recovery program for all who, like me, were foolish enough to give up on this band at any point.
(274 Madison Ave #804 New York, NY 10016)
