Phantascope

Album Review

Sometimes when musician's abilities outreach their vision, they create a record that attempts to be too many things at once, producing a scattered album of half-hearted misses. This over-ability plagues the second album from Anubian Lights, as they ably mimic a myriad of styles, yet fail to hit on any sound that holds up next to its original influences. The addition of former James Chance & the Contortionists keyboardist Adele Bertei to the duo formed by Tommy Green and Len del Rio only further complicates things, as the group attempts to mold her voice into a variety of forms, from distorted blues wailer on "Wild Winter" to perky pop princess on the 12-string Rickenbaker-driven "Sargasso Sea." Limp techno beats drive "Bhajan" with Greñas attempting a Leonard Cohen spoken style, also with minimal success. Over-instrumented and overproduced, every song here sounds like it was recorded for a low-budget film soundtrack, with references to pre-existing works far more important that creating something new. This sort of poly-genre blend has been done well before, with early Gus Gus albums springing to mind. Variety can be a strong suit in any band. But variety at the expense of expertise does no one any favors.