Blackberry Belle

米オルタナディヴ・ロックバンド、アフガン・ウィッグスのフロントマン、グレッグ・デュリによる別プロジェクト=ザ・トワイライト・シンガーズの2ndアルバム!(2003年作品)盟友のマーク・ラネガン(元スクリーミング・トゥリーズ/元クイーンズ・オブ・ザ・ストーン・エイジ)を始め、ジャズドラマーのスタントン・ムーア、グラミー・ブルース・シンガーのアルヴィン・ヤングブラッド・ハート、ペトラ・ヘイデン(シンガー、ヴァイオリニスト)等がゲスト参加!本作は米オルタナディヴ・ロックバンド、アフガン・ウィッグスのフロントマン、グレッグ・デュリによる別プロジェクト=ザ・トワイライト・シンガーズの2作目。2002年に心臓発作で他界した友人で映画監督のテッド・デミ(ブロウ、ビューティフル・ガールズ他)に捧げられた。

Q - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Few musicians do twitchy noir snapshots quite so well..." CMJ - "...A tinkle on the piano, lazy beats and low vocals build and explode into full-blown rock orchestrations, joined by Dulli's unmistakable wail, all on an album that hits one amazing crescendo after another..." Rolling Stone - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...[Dulli's] placed his transcendentally dark songwriting in a host of shadowy settings....This is old-school album rock, each fragment linking to tell a story, every nuance begging to be savored." Spin - "[I]t's the quieter moments, peppered with funeral-parlor humor, that really resonate." - Grade: A- Kerrang (01/11/03, p.54) - 5 (out of 5) - "There are several Greg Dulli albums everyone should own. This is just the latest one."

'Blackberry Belle' is the second release from former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli's collective Twilight Singers. The album continues with the soulful rock sound that they explored on their debut release 'Twilight' while this time being joined by an increased amount of collaborators including Mark Lanegan and Prince vocalist Apollonia Kotero.|

Greg Dulli returns to his Twilight Singers project with the atmospheric Blackberry Belle. This time around, the dirtily soulful self-hater/lover is joined at one point or another by multi-instrumentalist Mathias Schneeberger, guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore, the incomparable Petra Haden, and Mark Lanegan, who takes main vocal duties for the shadowy devil of closer "Number Nine." Apollonia even makes an appearance as a backing vocalist for a few tracks. Somehow, even with its grainy appropriations of trip-hop (especially "Teenage Wristband," which sounds like a holdover from the first half of the Singers' 2000 debut), everything on Blackberry Belle begins to eventually sound like Leonard Cohen. The moody black-and-white palm tree cover art is no joke -- this is an album that views sunlight through the cracked blinds of a claustrophobic hotel lounge. "There's a riot goin' on/Inside of me/Won't you come inside/See what I see?," "I think we're lost, don't worry/I've been here before," "If you're in trouble then I'll follow" -- it's melancholy and death wishes in the first person here, and love only exists as a means to a bitter end. These are themes that Dulli has made a habit of discussing; nevertheless, they're made newly potent over Blackberry's dusky, shifting rhythms. Things are too scary to be danceable, although the album definitely has a groove. "Decatur St." mixes Massive Attack with Afghan Whigs, while "Follow You Down" is shimmering and stripped-down, with only frail guitar and piano to guide its death wish lyrics. Drummer Moore injects some funk into "Feathers," and "Esta Noche" finds the inherent beat in a European dial tone. Quietly building opener "Martin Eden" might make the defining statement of the record with its initial lines: "Black out the windows/It's party time." Cohen's melancholy is coursing through Dulli's tortured veins; it's good to see that he's still getting top-notch talent to aid in the nightly bloodletting. ~ Johnny Loftus

いやぁー、男も濡れる唄心ですわ!　これほどまでに〈ベイベ～〉だとか〈ハニ～〉だとか〈ウィズアウチュ～〉だとか似合うアーティストは他にいませんってば!　グランジ・ムーヴメントでは、その代表的バンドとして認知されていながらも、他とは一線を画す激セクシーなスタイルを展開していたアフガン・ウィッグス。そのフロントマンであるグレッグ・デュリのプロジェクトがコレ!　待望のセカンド・アルバムとなる本作でも、さらにゴージャス&ムーディー&バーボンぶりが発揮されておりまして、ストリングス、ホーン、ピアノもバッチリにクネクネと煌めき歌い上げております。しかしここには何の思惑も存在していなくて、要するに不器用な男によるストレートな〈ラヴ〉だけが溢れているから胸熱くなるんですね。ソウル～リズム&ブルース～ゴスペル的なエッセンスも本当にシビれるーっ!　キメたい夜にぜひお試しください。
bounce (C)小林 英樹