Packed with rock attitude and electro beats.
author: James Werder
"Bizarre Love Triangle" is the debut CD by Charlotte Summer. Packed with rock attitude and electro beats, this album gives Garbage and Republica a run for their money. Charlotte Summer does for redheads what Debbie Harry did for blondes...
The album opens with "Cage", a song with barbed lyrics about repressive religions and a sound that reminds me of the classic "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins.
Up next is the hypnotic "Dreams", a catchy piano riff that builds to an anthem-like chorus, hiding shades of 80's pop within it.
"Without Me" is my favorite. It starts with a fantastic intro that builds into a feel-good, sing-along chorus. It's as if Human League's "Don't You Want Me" married Outkast's "Hey Ya!" and had this illegitimate offspring.
The moody "Guilty" is next, summoning up the spectres of Sisters Of Mercy and This Mortal Coil. Beautiful and broody.
"Short Time" ticks the album back into higher gear and delivers a fine sentiment in it's "live for today" lyrics.
I've always loved The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" but Charlotte Summer's version takes the song into an electro direction that Robert himself would probably be found dancing to! It's as if The Dandy Warhols and Ladytron met and fell in love. Great!
"Wasted" brings the rock back, full of distorted guitars and pounding drums.
Fans of Industrial and Alternative music will love "Get Down", a dance floor shaking track that wonderfully merges crashing guitars, pumping bass, electro drums and a raunchy vocal.
The closing track "Psycho" is a beautifully barren torch song with conscientious lyrics and powerful delivery.
The bonus remix of "Without Me" ends the album on an upbeat note. This version adds club beats to an already catchy song and leaves me wanting to go back to the start of the CD and hit play again.
An excellent album!
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Forget Garbage's new CD and get this instead.
author: Steve T.
Now that the long-awaited new Garbage CD is out, it's time to offer an alternative to others who were similarly disappointed with the latest effort from Shirley Manson and her band. Charlotte Summer's "Bizarre Love Triangle" - yes, named after the New Order classic - is a sexy, doomy, and quite danceable update of post-punk with a slightly club-ish subtext. Summer has a husky, powerful voice that commands attention; this is no weakling femme singer/songwriter from the Lilith Fair days.
The first cut, "Cage," opens the door to her inner darkness right away, swinging on a black Joy Division-ish riff. There's a little bit more Joy Division on "Guilty" as well, and even the cryptic one-word song titles have that Ian Curtis aura to them. "Dreams" is a mood-weaving number with a late-period Depeche Mode undertow; the tempo does pick up a tad but it's so seductively ominous that it doesn't wear the listener down with its bleakness.
Mixing Goth and pop is perfectly natural as the Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees have proven in the past, and Summer excels in delivering said mutations. "Without Me" is probably the album's heaviest track; however, it remains a toe-tapper. "Wasted" has deliciously sinister keyboards.
There have been too many Cure covers in the past, but Summer's rendition of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" is a standout. It sounds much grimmer, musically speaking, than the original, and Summer's midnight voice provides it with a nocturnal sensuality that Robert Smith was never able to convey. Forget Garbage's new CD and get this instead.
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