Customer Reviews

Halo Star

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album is an exquisite mix of tribal, folk, and dark-wave sounds that will send lyrical bliss to your soul. Old fans will agree that this is a powerful comeback as well as one of the best CD's put out by Black Tape; new fans will be mesmerized by the silky vocals of Grant & Helm and fall in complete love with the dark-wave genre. This is also the first album in a long while for BTBG that prominently features male vocals!

The first track "Glow" sends you on a wild tantalizing tribal tour into depths of unknown wonder. Short but sweet, it meshes into the second track, "Tarnished". Helm's Gothic vocals intertwined with the tribal beats melts even the most blackened heart. Track 3 is one of my favorites. "The Gravediggers" is a soft, melodically dark, and morbidly beautiful song telling a story of a person about to be buried, lost in limbo it appears. Exquisite! Grant finally graces our ears with her vocal presence in the 4th track "Your love is sweeter than wine" Hello! This woman's voice is as sweet and luxurious as honey! Grant again seduces us with track 5 "Indefinable, yet" sharing her indefinable love and Helm adds some background vocals which make this an absolutely beautiful rendition of a Gothic love song (Is there such thing? Gothic LOVE song?) and the instrumental splashes of bells, flute, and acoustic guitar (played by Helm) sets your love ablaze. "Knock three times" is a campy upbeat little Gothic tune that leaves your toes a tapping and fingers a snappin while the rest of your being is absolutely creeped out. I mean c'mon, wouldn't you be if someone told you they were trying to bring back their dead lover? Track 7 the vocals are reminiscent to The Church and the music will simply blow you away. Track 8 "Damn Swan!" Grant is back at it again, her sultry honey like voice mesmerizes and seduces you with this song of innocence lost. Track 9 "Already Forgotten" Grant's vocals along side beautiful piano and cello brings tears to your eyes with this sad sad story of loss and memories. The rest of this CD is just simply amazing! I'm telling you, pleading with you, listen to the sample tracks, you are going to fall in love, you must purchase this CD!

Black Tape for a Blue girl will be on tour in September and October.

I resisted listening to BTFABG for years. And when I did hear them, it was completely out of context, just a random track here & there, so I wrote them off. What a mistake! I'm glad I came back to them and gave "Halo Star" a listen.

They remind me immediately of the old Dead Can Dance. Where DCD went deeply into experimenting with period and culturally specific instruments, this album still retains that otherwordly quality that I fell in love with all those years ago that DCD embodied so perfectly.

Each song flows into each other softly and smoothly. There's nothing scary or disjointed about them at all. The album itself transformed me to this sort of dreamy aural landscape. It's like a personal soundtrack to your own independent film all about you!

It doesn't surprise me that BTFABG has not and never will hit the mainstream. In a way, I hope they don't so I can keep them as a precious secret and dazzle the uninitiated. Don't you?

When I mention Halo and smoke, it is a metaphor for the feeling I got when listening to the cd; its components of the character Halo on the cd with the visceralness of the music (smoke), which then translated into my sensation awareness of what went on during the live show which I booked in Boise, where I live. The show was amazing and full of sights and sounds to behold and savor, and my intense awareness of the smoke that filled the stage from the fog machine really heightened my overall impression of this cd. This cd is subtle, and it has grown on me since the time I originally heard it when Sam Rosenthal sent it to me as a promoter's copy.

Much of the music on this cd may seem too subtle to the average listener of darkwave and ethereal music (or even the average music lover); but upon further inspection, a rawness and depth is so clearly present in the songs included on this album, and the common thread of the character Halo is stitched perfectly into the fabric of the songs as they trail each other...each successively more complex than the next. Highlights include "Tarnished" which is the official opener on this album, even though "Glow" comes before it as a prelude to "Tarnished" brushing beautiful Eastern drumbeats and an eerie soundscape of what is to come. "Scarecrow" is wonderfully layered with male vocals over intense music and mystification. "Knock three times" provides a lighter but not-to-be-forgotten presence with its bit of campy humor alongside whispered piano and dark vocal styling. "Dagger" is easily one of my favorites on this album. When I hear this track, I feel as though I am instantly one and the same with a brilliant ray of light and mist radiating from the descending ashes of sadness that seems to weigh so heavily upon the tapestry of this musical expression. It is that complex, and heavenly male vocals mesh perfectly with the unbroken progression of this amazing, understated song. All tracks are replete with unique style and have their own story to tell, magnified by Bret Helm's (of Audra) marvelous, dark and breathy voice and Elysabeth Grant's supernatural vocals coming through the drumbeats and wall of sound in the music surrounding it.

"Already Forgotten", though beautifully full of Elysabeth Grant's achingly haunted vocals, seems almost a little too repetitious of music on other albums. But the way the piano dances around the voice in this track is quite mesmerizing. Despite remnants here and there from black tape's previous material (which is not a detriment), their newest offering has as much substance as any other album I've listened to, perhaps more with the additon of one of the strongest and most hypnotic male singers I have ever had the privilege of hearing (live and recorded).

I cannot recommend this album enough to music lovers, especially those with a penchant and ear for darkness and painstakingly crafted arenas that are really much more like soundtracks to moments in life than merely just music. My review only afforded four stars because I have not yet heard in their entirety each black tape album and been able to judge them all equally alongside one another.

I must admit, in the past I didn't care much for Black Tape for a Blue Girl's music. I just failed to understand all the appraisal they were receiving from the Gothic darkwave scene, and yet with each new release I continued to buy their albums anyway simply because there was always at least one or two songs I really enjoyed. However, several years later and more into this genre than ever before, BTfaBG has vastly grown on me.

Perhaps they're an acquired taste but now I lick this stuff up like it's dessert! 'Halo Star' opens with a haunting Middle Eastern flair that continues on to the next track, "Tarnished", and is one of their more upbeat songs while the others are mostly slower paced. The use of instruments are otherwordly and delicately played with dark, gloomy rhythms that consist of melancholy lyrics often sung by lush female vocalist, Elysabeth Grant, and are usually chock-full of heartache and despair. Bret Helm also lends his brooding voice to many of the pieces here and sounds a lot like Voltaire on the quirky "Knock Three Times". The most notable track for me, though, would have to be "Damn Swan!" It may be short (clocking in at a little over 3 minutes in length) but is achingly beautiful...

Just classic perfection heard throughout; presented in a subtle fashion.

I say this album is different because it is rather different to thier other albums, and despite my favorite album of thiers being remnants, i love this album just as much. I feel that sometimes this album is reminiscent of old moody blues. Trippy and folky mixed in with synth and flute. If anyone knows old Moody albums, then you may agree with me. This album may not be for everyone, but, i belive i am not everyone. I listen to alot of stuff that a lot of people don't like, and visa versa.

I am happy that Black Tape for a Blue Girl haven't changed much even though many years have passed since the first CD. I like this one quite a bit, so they have done their genre proud.

I like old school goth, and I like mellow music, and this is kind of neither. Old school goth has a neat, creepy element to it, mellow music makes you relax. This record kind of makes you feel, well, a little stupid. If you know BTFABG, then you pretty much know what to expect, because their music hasn't changed in many years. There are exceptions, depending upon who's on what record. Sometimes they change, for better or worse. But the basic formula, and I think there is pretty much a basic formula, is so predictable that once you get more than 6 seconds into a song you're thinking "deja vu" time. All the great reviews made me buy this cd and "Scavenger Bride" and well, sometimes the samples you get online just aren't long enough. I can get the atmosphere of what they're trying to convey, but I don't get any substance.
And I think that's what's important. There's no meat to the bone. And if you listen to "Knock Three Times" you'll be wishing it was Tony Orlando and Dawn. 'Nuff said.