Review Summary: Somewhere between Cat Power and Scott Walker without the focus of either.
Hello, Voyager, is the debut from the band
Evangelista, led by Carla Bouzilich who previously released the album
Evangelista under her own name. Confused? So was I. At this point, actually listening to the album a good 10 or more times has done very little to ease my confusion. What I do know is that Evangelista know how to make a racket. Combining a variety organic instrumentation (guitars, organs, drums, strings and vocals) with bluesy rhythms, noise-based ideas and dark, depressing chord choices, Evangelista certainly have a unique take on the standard rock n' roll template.
Hello, Voyager is an album of epic proportions, or at least attempted ones. Bouzilich seems to approach her songwriting with a 'try anything' approach, which allows for some interesting experiments, but an ultimately convoluted album, the overall vision of which is difficult to pinpoint. The album seems to work at individual points more than as a whole. The cacophonous "Smooth Jazz" has some really interesting and unique textures while "The Frozen Dress" is an extremely intense 6 minutes of noise. The sparse "Lucky Lucky Luck" is another highlight with it's driving one-note bass line, bluesy guitar lines and appropriately stylish vocals. Bouzilich seems to be going for a sound that lies somewhere between the earthy song-based work of someone like
Cat Power and the hell that was
Scott Walker's
The Drift. Clearly, Bouzilich has the ability to write a song but when it comes to the more bizarre ideas, she just doesn't seem a disturbed enough person to be able to pull them off.
The album's biggest misstep comes in its closer and title track, which consists of all of the band members making an obscene amount of noise while Bouzilich rants and yells over the top. It's not necessarily a bad idea, it's just that when Bouzilich yells out lines like "this is my huge throbbing diseased prick", they're not disturbing in the slightest because they seem completely insincere. Bouzilich however, does have some good ideas and there are some very good moments to be found on
Hello, Voyager, it's just the convoluted mess of ideas that is the rest of the album overwhelms its strongest points.
Recommended Tracks
Smooth Jazz
Lucky Lucky Luck
The Frozen Dress
