Tara Angell - Come Down

Genre rock Publisher Rykodisc External Links Official Site Rykodisc

I remember reading a comic book once that had a drawing of a typical bleached-blonde downtown hipster girl, lying on a bare mattress, surrounded by the requisite kitsch items, back issues of Boiled Angel and Rollerderby and William S Burroughs novels, and kitted out in a Courtney Love-issue kinderwhore slip and smeared red lipstick. Facing the reader with kohl-rimmed, tear-stained eyes, she shrieks, "I WANNA BE BAD!!!"

That's kind of what Tara Angell's Come Down reminds me of. Angell is trying so hard to convince you that she's screwy in the head that she borders on self-parody. The album's first song is called "Untrue" and it goes like this: "I am untrue, I am untrue." Those are the lyrics. Okay, we get it already.

Angell's voice is a wobbly Lucinda Williams-manque instrument whose innate abrasiveness is not well served by Joseph Arthur's production. In fact, Arthur's oft-demonstrated love of the effects pedals only exacerbates the annoying qualities in Angell's voice. On his own records, Arthur manages to orchestrate his unbelievable arsenal of recording doohickeys in such a manner that his voice and lyrics are not obscured. On Come Down, however, he exercises no such restraint. He's all over the map, and his indiscriminate attitude does Angell no favors. There are ill-placed handclaps in "You Can't Say No to Hell" that don't mesh with the song at all, and a throwaway number called "Bitch Please" smack dab in the album's center completely ruins the ominous mood Angell and Arthur were working toward. Arthur builds tension with delay, reverb and tendrils of organ hanging over the whole enterprise like Spanish moss, and the effect is briefly pleasing. However, with consistency comes monotony, and the strata of production eventually creates a sheen of tedium. This should be anathema to an artist like Angell, with her drama-queen witchy-woman aura. I know she wants to be bad, but Come Down doesn't make it that far-it's just irritating and tiresome.