Album Notes

Black Janet CD review:

"I've been wailing this baby on-and-off for a few weeks, and I continue to be amazed by how different it sounds -from track to track, as a whole, and from itself. Somehow my cognitive facilities are not adapted to adjusting for the variety; "Mirage" could not possibly be a song by the same band that plays "Masters of Deception." Sometimes Janet sounds like one of those cool, no-wave, underground- but-slick rock bands, sometimes they sound like old-school guitar rockers, other times they sound like something else altogether. I guess I'll get over it. Common and shared ingredients are a pervasive sense of drama -be it dark tragedy or dark comedy -often set in a gloomy motif (check the smoke-fogged deep blues of "Beware") and the devastating vocal interplay between Jim Wurster and Marsha Lewis throughout. Beyond that are plenty of hooking riffs and touches (e.g., the meaty guitar solos, also from "Beware") and an overall sound so textured you'll never unravel it all. As potent as anything out on the majors right now, and give the Black ones extra points for the groovy cover of the Vesper Sparrow nugget "Don't Give Your Love Away." - Greg Baker / Miami New Times