MURDER BY DEATH – Red Of Tooth And Claw (Vagrant)
Original release date: March 3rd, 2008
Seeing a band called Murder By Death may conjure up expectations that they play death metal, but judging a band by its name can result in false assumptions, as opening cut Comin’ Home proves: it sounds more like Johnny Cash covering a brooding Nick Cave song than Black Dahlia Murder or Napalm Death. Far from Satan-worshipping, blood-drinking metal debauchees, Murder By Death are a team of balladic troubadours, mixing Gothic Americana with earthy traditional music in a modern way. This will come as no surprise to those who’ve been in the know about this band for their three previous albums.
With Adam Turla’s deep baritone voice and Sarah Balliet’s versatile cello the distinguishing features, the band challenge the traditional image of a rock band with the likes of the jauntily gloomy Ball & Chain, which sounds like a knees-up at a gypsy funeral. But even the more conventional rockers like Rum Brave or Ash retain the distinctive qualities of this unusual combo.
The imposing Steal Away runs along at a quicker tempo, ’52 Ford comes across like Eastern European country & western, and you get three guesses what Theme (For Ennio Morricone) is influenced by. But the high-water mark comes at the album’s end with the incredible Spring Break 1899, which takes the framework established by the preceding songs and weaves in 1950s doo-wop for a dramatic, dazzling result.
Despite the debt owed to music of the past, Red Of Tooth And Claw doesn’t come off as a throwback, but rather classically timeless. This would be an intriguing – and great – album if released in any decade.
Owen Heitmann