She Comes In Waves

Album Review

Crazy Mary's She Comes in Waves is a little bit trippy and a little bit hippie. In this assortment of post-new wave atmospheric music, tied together by solid grooves and inventive songwriting, New York City's Crazy Mary emanates the aura of a local, unpolished band playing to an audience of five at the neighborhood tavern. You know, the way the Next Big Thing sounds before the rest of the world discovers how great they are? The songs here fall mainly in the pop/rock-crunchy guitar-post-punk category with a melodic range that goes from mellow and pastoral ("Paris [1944]," "Consider," "A Little Faith") to percussion heavy pop-punk ("She Comes in Waves") and back to basic blues-rock ("Shot by Bullets"). The meandering moodiness captured on "City's on Fire" exhibits that rare mix of posturing and true substance. Crazy Mary's easy guitars, edgy turns, and mellow vocalizations create a first-rate musical attraction of sonorous rendering and quiet rhythms, reasonably enjoyable in an off-kilter sort of way.