Sometimes, when I listen to independent bands who are fighting
\nfor a chance to be screwed over by the big labels, I wonder why a
\ncertain band hasn’t gotten the breaks to make the leap from
\nrelative unknown to superstar. Of course, there also are times when
\nI wonder if a band wouldn’t deserve a shot – say, a .38 slug
\nthrough the breastbone.<\/p>\n
Then, there are the times when I wonder where a potentially good
\nband went wrong. Such is the case with Crazy Mary, a New York-based
\ngroup whose second album
\nShe Comes In Waves<\/i> has a few moments of potential, but
\notherwise is a weak effort.<\/p>\n
The band – guitarist\/vocalist Richard Morbid (who has since left
\nthe group), guitarist\/vocalist Charles Kibel, vocalist Sophia
\nJackson, bassist\/vocalist George Kerezman and drummer Nick Raisz –
\nseem to capture the sense of alternative music well, in that they
\ndon’t neatly fit into any musical category. But Crazy Mary has two
\nmajor weaknesses: songwriting, and being able to stay in tune.<\/p>\n
For the bulk of
\nShe Comes In Waves<\/i>, the vocals seem to go flat at precisely
\nthe wrong times – and it doesn’t matter who’s acting as lead
\nthroat. Sorry, gang, but that’s inexcusable; I don’t expect
\nabsolute perfection, but it would be nice if you’d at least try to
\nhit the target more often.<\/p>\n
As for the songwriting – well, I don’t know if Crazy Mary
\npurposely tried to go for a minimalist instrumental touch on some
\nof these tracks, but occasionally I get the feeling that just
\nletting it rip musically could have helped the situation. Tracks
\nsuch as “Burned,” “Calendar Green,” “Talking To Wendy” and “Paris
\n(1944)” all seem like pale reflections of what could have been.<\/p>\n
That missed potential is hammered home on the best track on the
\ndisc, “No Resistance” – ironically, the only track penned by
\nKerezman. (Memo to the band: I think I have your new CD lying
\naround the Archives, and I will get to it – but you might want to
\ngive Kerezman a chance to write more. He’s good.) The writing is
\nsolid, the performances have some muscle behind them – good grief,
\neven the vocals sound impressive. If
\nShe Comes In Waves<\/i> had a few more tracks like this on it,
\nthis disc would have been passable.<\/p>\n
And though other tracks like “Cancer On The Photograph” and
\n“Shock Me” try to maintain that drive, they’re sadly not able to –
\nthough I don’t fault these songs. Three songs just can’t carry an
\nalbum, no matter who the artist is.<\/p>\n
And that’s the thing that bothers me about
\nShe Comes In Waves<\/i>. I truly believe this could have been a
\ngood album, if a little more TLC (that’s “tender loving care” for
\nthe pre-1985 crowd out there) had been administered in the
\nsongwriting and recording phases. Crazy Mary needs to tighten up
\ntheir song structures and work on singing in the correct key in
\norder to rise up from being a spotty band to a good one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6494],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36906","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-crazy-mary","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36906"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36906"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}