Review: Jeffree Star - Beauty Killer

Jeffree Star - Beauty Killer
2009, Popsicle Records

Jeffree Star started out as a model and makeup artist with an obsessive love of music. His early attempts at songwriting were more of an offhand experimentation than a serious attempt at song craft, but Star has a certain flair for the dramatic that comes through in his music. Working with various Los Angeles producers, including Lester Mendez (Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Nelly Furtado) and Luke Walker (Alkaline Trio, Elliott Yamin); Jeffree Star has created Beauty Killer; a collection of twelve highly danceable songs full of pathos and promise.

Beauty Killer opens with Get Away With Murder, a musical promise or threat from a narrator who is imbalanced and pathologically unable to maintain relationships. Set to a killer dance beat, I suspect this tune will be huge on the club scene. The first single, Prisoner, received upwards of 500,000 streams its first weekend on MySpace and seems certain to propel the initial sales of Beauty Killer to stratospheric heights. It's heavy Rock/Electronica that's certain to make an impact on the dance charts and in the clubs. Louis Vuitton Body Bag features Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba helping out on vocals, and stands out as perhaps the best dance track on the album in spite of the dark content. Electric Sugar Pop slows the tempo down a bit but not the infectious nature of the song. This is bubblegum pop for the electronic music age, but it's very good by both accounts and may have the biggest potential as a Pop single of anything on the disc.

B!tch, Please is one of those songs where fame or infamy is the ultimate question (and ultimately, are they different?). Pat Robertson had a tremor when this song was first written and had no idea why. Lollipop Luxury (with Nicki Manaj) and Get Physical stay on pretty much the same course, whereas Fame & Riches, Rehab B!tches brings a little bit of emo/hardcore scream into the dance realm and features Breathe Carolina. Star closes out Beauty Killer with a pair of add-on tracks, Fresh Meat and Queen Of The Club Scene. Both have the feel of filler as they lack the intensity of much of the album.

Jeffree Star's Beauty Killer will be a big winner on the club scene; likely to be more popular in Europe than in the US. The material is somewhat one dimensional like a lot of pure Dance/Pop, but will score points for shock value on some songs for folks who prize that sort of thing in their music. I thought it was a decent listen; not something I'd feel compelled to spin again personally, but I can see the draw for the clubbers.

Rating: 3 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Jeffree Star at www.myspace.com/jeffreestar. You can purchase Beauty Killer at Star’s web store, or you can download it through iTunes. If you purchase the CD, you’ll get a signed poster from Star while supplies last.

Review: Adrina Thorpe - Halflight & Shadows

Adrina Thorpe - Halflight & Shadows
2009, Adrina Thorpe

Adrina Thorpe gained a great deal of popular attention from her debut album, Elusive, placing songs in shows from CW and Lifetime networks as well as independent films. Her song Who Will Find Me was proclaimed by DJ Armin Van Buuren to be "his favorite song of the last two years". Thorpe's follow-up CD, Halflight & Shadows, brings no sophomore slump for the performer whose songwriting walks the line between darkness and light. With an all-star band of cohorts including producer Filippo Gaetani; drummer Randy Cooke (Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, Five For Fighting); cellist David Takahashi (Sting, Sheryl Crow, Kanye West); violinist Chris Woods (Justin Timberlake; Jessica Simpson) and drummer Fernando Sanchez (Luis Fonsi, Charlotte Martin), the classically trained Thorpe has managed to create a true aural experience for the listener. The blending of Classical, Folk and Rock styles dazzles with flashes of brilliance and magical undercurrents of melody and harmony.

Halflight & Shadows opens with Impossible Dream, a mid-tempo ethereal rocker in the style of Sarah McLachlan. Thorpe has a stunning and haunting voice, in turns, occasionally affecting the style of McLachlan or even Tori Amos while carving out a niche that is mostly her own. Impossible Dream carries with it a lost and searching sense that fits the song perfectly. Midnight is a dark and mysterious love song with an interesting mix of instrumentation. You'll hear everything from piano to orchestration to electronic sounds; a gorgeous and haunting mix. Everything Changes is about letting go of a bad relationship and places some of the thought process in song. The song is lyrically dense at times in the verse which is balance by an ethereal yet economic chorus.

Domino highlights the fact that once you know the truth your options are pretty limited. The song is gorgeous and dark and full of a barely contained anger that struggles with the narrator's good nature. This one sounds like it could be a Tori Amos outtake, with a piano style reflective of Amos' work and a vocal style that's almost dead on at times. Driving finds Thorpe in a place that is dark, vulnerable and full of need. The tune is unforgettable, halting and striving in turns with the turn of emotion that drives the narrator. The car ride is simply an encapsulation for a journey the narrator is consumed with. Coming Home is a song about running from what you need; sometimes when the prodigal child returns home facts have changed and people have moved on; A powerful and emotive track with a lush sound.

Walk is very much reflecting of Sarah McLachlan's earlier work. Dark and stormy and full of volatile emotions, Walk reflects a primitive beauty at war with need. Moment To End is probably the most beautiful vocal on the disc; the song gets caught up in the obsessive nature of the moment and repeats the title until it nearly hits a breaking point for the listener. This is either a miscalculation or an attempt to instill the sort of cognitive and emotional dissonance in the listener that the narrator feels. Kiss The Day is a highly melodic and vaguely ethereal Lilith Fair Pop-Rocker. The subject is a bit convoluted but it's sonically pleasing. Give You My Love is a sweet and open love song that holds no hidden traps or equivocations. It's a refreshingly honest and pure love song set to a haltingly beautiful melody line. Thorpe closes out the set with Seed, a six-minute piano and voice odyssey that's part epoch poem and part journal entry. Thorpe keeps listeners on the edge of their seat as she unfolds a story, spoken to another, about the prospects for love, life and happiness. The vocal is drop-dead gorgeous in a song that sounds like it could be the introduction to a stage show. This is the sort of tune that unfolds in concert to utter, unbreakable silence that explodes into a cacophony of applause at the end. It's the perfect close to the album.

Adrina Thorpe is an amazing songwriter. She's obviously been influenced by folks like Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and even perhaps Kate Bush. You can hear these influences in her music but at the same time Thorpe has taken those influences and wrapped them up with her own personality and style to create something distinctive. Hers is a voice that would stop people on the streets of a place like New York City, and the arrangements she crafts are perfect frames and backgrounds for the stories she tells in her songs. Halflight & Shadows is brilliant; a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc. Don't miss it.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Adrina Thorpe at www.myspace.com/adrinathorpe or http://www.adrinathorpe.com/, where you can order Halflight & Shadows as either a CD or download.