Greg Dulli returns to his
Twilight Singers project with the atmospheric
Blackberry Belle. This time around, the dirtily soulful self-hater/lover is joined at one point or another by multi-instrumentalist Mathias Schneeberger, guitarist
Alvin Youngblood Hart,
Galactic drummer
Stanton Moore, the incomparable
Petra Haden, and
Mark Lanegan, who takes main vocal duties for the shadowy devil of closer "Number Nine."
Apollonia even makes an appearance as a backing vocalist for a few tracks. Somehow, even with its grainy appropriations of trip-hop (especially "Teenage Wristband," which sounds like a holdover from the first half of
the Singers' 2000 debut), everything on
Blackberry Belle begins to eventually sound like
Leonard Cohen. The moody black-and-white palm tree cover art is no joke -- this is an album that views sunlight through the cracked blinds of a claustrophobic hotel lounge. "There's a riot goin' on/Inside of me/Won't you come inside/See what I see?," "I think we're lost, don't worry/I've been here before," "If you're in trouble then I'll follow" -- it's melancholy and death wishes in the first person here, and love only exists as a means to a bitter end. These are themes that
Dulli has made a habit of discussing; nevertheless, they're made newly potent over
Blackberry's dusky, shifting rhythms. Things are too scary to be danceable, although the album definitely has a groove. "Decatur St." mixes
Massive Attack with
Afghan Whigs, while "Follow You Down" is shimmering and stripped-down, with only frail guitar and piano to guide its death wish lyrics. Drummer
Moore injects some funk into "Feathers," and "Esta Noche" finds the inherent beat in a European dial tone. Quietly building opener "Martin Eden" might make the defining statement of the record with its initial lines: "Black out the windows/It's party time."
Cohen's melancholy is coursing through
Dulli's tortured veins; it's good to see that he's still getting top-notch talent to aid in the nightly bloodletting. ~ Johnny Loftus