Queenadreena - The Butcher And The Butterfly

  by Helen Tipping

published: 7 / 7 / 2005

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Review

Queen Adreena formed from the ashes of Daisy Chainsaw. Following a break from music Katie Jane Garside and Crispin Gray returned in the late 90's releasing the first album 'Taxidermy' in 2000. The next album, 'Drink Me', was released in 2002. In 'The Butcher and the Butterfly' Katie returns to the things that fascinate her; exploitation, sexuality, innocence and childhood. Her voice moves from a childlike whisper to an adult scream encapsulating these areas of personal obsession and illustrating the subject matter of the lyrics. This isn’t always clear. Katie uses metaphor and the lyrics themselves are often more like poems in their own right. Others are clearly sexual in nature and deal with fantasies, sado-masochistic sexual encounters or child abuse scandals as in 'FM Doll' which is about the abuse and murder of child beauty queen Jon-Benet Ramsay, an incident which seems to have caught Katie’s imagination. Most of the tracks on this CD are all heavy guitars, and crashing drums, occasionally tribal sounding, overlaid with Katie’s vocals. Others are slower. 'Join the Dots' has a slow and sleazy sound to it as does 'Wolverines'. 'Birdnest Hair' is slow and ballad-like with acoustic guitar and Katie’s vocals, an antidote to the punk-metal sound of much of the rest of the CD. I keep expecting it to move into a formulaic heavier chorus, but thankfully it never does. The CD doesn’t make for easy listening, neither the dark subject matter nor much of the music. I quite like them, but I wonder if it’s a kind of morbid interest, like watching someone going through a mental breakdown or reading the patients' notes in a mental hospital when you have run out of other work to do.

Track Listing:-

1 Suck
2 Medicine Jar
3 Ascending Stars
4 Join The Dots
5 Pull Me Under
6 Racing Towards The Sun
7 Wolverines
8 Birdnest Hair
9 Princess Carwash
10 In Red
11 F.M. Doll
12 Black Spring Rising
13 Childproof
14 Princess Carwash (Slight Reply)
15 Cold Light Of Day
16 Butcher And The Butterfly