Hypnotic honky-tonk page 2
Those who crave more narcotic country tuneage may look to San Francisco's Tarnation, which manages to be at once darker and more traditional than the Junkies. There's a throbbing threnodial drone reminiscent of Nick Cave infesting their album, "Gentle Creatures," but otherwise it echoes the hoary honky-tonk hits of 1961. (Think Patsy Cline on smack.) Songs like "Two Wrongs Won't Make Things Right" sound like they could have been on the juke at a soda fountain three decades ago.The music's rootsy quality is accentuated by singer/songwriter Paula Frazer's voice, laced with a pronounced Georgia twang. Her wails and ululations lend an eerie resonance to her world-weary love songs, evoking a world both dingy and lush. On the first track, "Game of Broken Hearts," Frazer's voice rings out with a tinny echo, as if she's singing in an empty high school ballroom once the prom-goers have fled.
A palpable melancholic mood pervades "Gentle Creatures," one that seems a bit homogeneous as the disk spins on. Perhaps anticipating this, the band packed most of its stylistic aberrations in the last half of the album, including the surf dirge "The Hand" and "It's Not Easy," sung by steel guitar player Matt Sullivan, which almost sounds like a Monkees ballad. I'd recommend a bit of Tarnation as just the thing for a lazy Sunday evening, but for best results I'd prescribe taking it in small doses.
