Mortal Clay – Procession of Spectres – Review

mortalclay200Mortal Clay

Procession of Spectres
by Scott Hefflon

MySpace can get really annoying, as anyone will tell you, with all the shitty “bands” (that only have a demo burn, and never play outside a 20 mile radius cuz no one wants them) asking you to come check them out. Imagine what it’s like for a magazine that can’t bear to simply say “if you’re unsigned, there’s probably a reason for it, now go away.” I found Mortal Clay on MySpace, and they’re not some lousy opening band I’d “accidentally” show up late and miss, they’re damn near performance art. They leave lots of space in the songs so you can get lost and freaked out. They seem like the type to project images on a screen behind them, while they drone on and on, chants looping, awkward guitars stumbling from left to right, while Lyre sings straight as well as, uh, like a weary choir member, drunk and suicidal. Yeah, kinda creepy, making Rasputina sound pretty poppy. My favorite song is the pitch-shifted “Big Crunch,” which sounds like a normal song played on a cassette player with the batteries dying in fits and spurts.

If Christina Ricci had a band, it’d be Mortal Clay.
(www.mortalclay.com)