Welcome Crummy Mystics
Constellation
2003
Rating: 6.5 lead weights out of 10
I have to admit, I wasn’t terribly excited when I got this CD to review. I had heard the previous full length "My Red Scare" by Frankie Sparo and it hadn’t done much for me at all. I don’t know if Frankie is now writing songs that are more along my lines of enjoyment, or if my tastes have changed, but either way I enjoyed this record much more.
Frankie is from Montreal, so I guess that makes him French-Canadian (insert jokes here). The foundation most of his songs are built on are simple singer/songwriter fare – but it’s the flourishes he adds to it that makes it unique. Shades of Tom Waits in his voice (only nowhere near as gruff as Waits) with highlights reminiscent of a lounge singer; the music is somewhat similar to what you expect out of Constellation, walking a fine line between the mellower moments of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Dirty Three, and Barry Black (solo project of Archers of Loaf/Crooked Fingers front man Eric Bachmann).
Some of the songs just sit there as background music, some perk your ear from time to time, but one is really terrific. It’s called "Akzidenz Grotesk," and it’s Frankie’s closest foray toward a more classic "pop" song. The rest of his tracks are enjoyable enough in a meandering sort of way, but this one really seems like it’s going somewhere. Actually, it did go somewhere, straight into my brain to get stuck for days on end.
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