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Colour of Blood - The Significance of Secrecy COLLAGE Various
Artists - Memento Soundtrack
Tri-State Killing Spree is only one of THE best new darkwave bands out there! I’d heard a few tracks and was anxiously awaiting my copy of this disc. I was hopping from one foot to another waiting for the mailman, no lie. Finally it was delivered into my shaking hands, and lo! It was all that I had dreamed of. Most often I hear people comparing the Pacific Northwest’s Tri-State Killing Spree (3SKS for short) to the Cure. I have had friends come over and ask “Is that the Cure?” “No, its 3SKS”. I don’t personally find that the vocals sound overly like Robert Smith, but I think it’s the music that people find reminds them of the Cure. Like the Cure, it has dense layers of guitars and bass, often with hi-hat drums and dark melodic vocal lines. They are Cure-like in their dark velvety drama, pleading heartbreaking lyrics, and that sense of wallowing morosely in one’s darkened bedroom. At times there is a cinematic symphonic feel to the songs. So, maybe its like Disintegration-era Cure. After that, the similarities end.
Take, for example, their dark ponderous cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”. Its hardly recognizable! They slow it way down, and let it move through dark atmospheric landscapes before even letting a voice touch it. I love covers of 80’s tunes! This one is exceptional. Its hard to go wrong when your band consists of vocals, bass, keys, guitars, violins, and baritone violins! The addition of the strings is what sets this band apart from so many darkwave-wanna-be’s. It is a fact that a sobbing violin line can rip your heart out and tromp on it once or twice before dusting it off and putting it back.
Sean Sonnet’s vocals ring with emotion and pleading. 3SKS’s songs are bittersweet and beautiful, almost to a fault. They can write, too. Take for example, “Empty”: “Why ask all these questions/About things you wonder why/You just lay around inside yourself/Under the deep moon sky/And why all these answers/About things inside your head/Catching all the questionmarks/I see under your bed.” Ah, poetry! “Empty” is one of my favorite 3SKS tracks, if I have to choose a favorite. The waves of shimmering guitar and violin meld seamlessly. Oftimes the songs are underlaid by tribal-sounding drums that provide a heartbeat for these wonderfully human songs.
Passionate and haunting, 3SKS encompasses the themes of longing and loss, death and spirit. From “Sometimes Silver”: “…In inescapable dreaming/with hunger to breathe again/Impaling disbeliefs/In memory of you again/My lips would tremble with soulds like silver/And sometimes blue”. This amazing song makes me shiver deliciously from head to foot. I find it hard to pick apart these songs and dissect them into their parts --- they meld too well together. It would be like ripping the wings off a butterfly for fun. Cruel, and unnecessary.
This album is so much one complete piece that I have difficulty choosing “favorites” or tracks that are better than others. There is not an unpleasant track on this album. Notable tracks are: “Mendocino Girl”, “Chance”, “Toy Matinee” with its child-like piano at the beginning, and “Stronghands and Makebelieve”. Sometimes creepy, often sad and brooding, 3SKS provides an orchestral note to the underground soundtrack of my life. Rating: Haunting darkwave score weaving together violins and guitars Stars: Recommended if you like: The Cure, The Cocteau Twins, Madredeus, The Smiths, Catherine Wheel, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance Track Listing: 1. Chance Website: www.tristatekillingspree.com
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