Cynthia Dall - Sound Restores Young Men

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 31 / 8 / 2002




Cynthia Dall - Sound Restores Young Men


Label: Drag City
Format: CD
Eerily mysterious and fragilely haunting post-rock from the enigmatic Cynthia Dall, back with a second album after a six year absence



Review

Well over six years ago Cynthia Dall lifted her veil and put an album into the shops. Too tense for the liking of many she shyed off again. This first album 'Untitled' may have been the artistic antidote to Smog, whose Billy C did a duet with Mrs Dall back then. Tim Green (of the Fucking Champs), engineering and coaching her on guitar, keeps the engine running now that she's doing more on her own. On 'Sound Restores Young Men', only her second album, she, however, gives the eerie mystery in her music a more fragile grace. Do Cynthia Dall songs do this to men? It might be unfair to girls, but these do. This post-rock Siren songwriter comes on like Liz Phair but that's as far as the comparison goes. Like Phair the rhythm isn't macho. There's no bass, but instead it's Mrs Dall and her brother Aaron The Teenager digging some jive from the snares. In the haunting epic 'Nest of Dead Children' there is however uncredited bassplaying and the track is ironically the one that has been recommended by the label. Maybe you can't get radio play without any bass. Cynthia Dall has a firm hand when writing her songs though her sound is not confrontial but restorative. 'God Made You' is the track most likely to drag you in. And if not, your karma for today sucks. Throughout the last tracks Cynthia proves herself a jewel of a singer-songwriter. Tradition, however heavily well restructured by Jim O'Rourke, finds a home in the gorgeous drumbox dragger 'Not One'. She is a great storyteller and composer and even when she disappears into lengthy wanderings towards the end of 'Sound Restores Young Men' you cannot help by fall for her mysterious charms



Track Listing:-

1 Be Safe With Me
2 God Made You
3 Extreme Cold
4 Zero
5 I Played With Boys
6 The Party
7 Not One
8 Wastebasket Kid II
9 Nest Of Dead Children
10 Boys And Girls
11 I'm Not Tempted
12 Snakeblood And Vodka


Label Links:-

http://www.dragcity.com/
https://twitter.com/dragcityrecords
https://www.facebook.com/dragcityrecor



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