Customer Reviews

Misery Is a Butterfly

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

You know those records that catch a band at their peak? The ones that come around where the planets are aligned and all is right in your world? It has happened to a lot of artists: Pavement's - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, U2's - Joshua Tree and even something like Blur's - Parklife. Now I'm not comparing Misery is a Butterfly to those, just simply drawing a look to what is happening with the latest Blonde Redhead release. I really feel that this record is what they've been striving to achieve for some time now, the timing is indeed right. The planets are lining up and the music snobs are coming around as well.

It is a beautiful record. The arrangements are lush the vocals are unique and well-mixed. The lyrics are thoughful and engaging. One can sense the craft that went into such a piece of work. My favorite tunes off Misery are the first two. Esp. the haunting, The Messenger, it has such style and grace, you'll be hooked from the opening bars.

It is hard to classify this record into a genre - but if I had to do it, I would throw it somewhere in the arena of lush-indie. The strings they use are more present and they really sound great throughout. They switch up singers to a nice flow. They use classical breaks and bridges one might find at an opera. There are a lot of things going on, all good.

I knew nothing of Blonde Redhead before I read a music review in a local free paper this year, and it interested me enough to visit the label's website and try an MP3 of the title track to this album. I went out and bought the album, and what a pleasant discovery it was.

Blonde Redhead is composed of Kazu Makino and twins Amadeo and Simone Pace. They create a sound often compared to Sonic Youth (especially their early, more unstructured sound), but since this is the only full album of theirs I've heard, I can't help but compare them with Radiohead.

Probably BR's most eclectic part, and some would argue their weakest link, is their vocals. If you remember the first time you heard Radiohead's Thom Yorke or Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell, or even Geddy Lee of Rush, some vocalists are at first challenging to the ear, and then become rewarding over time. The often whiny vocals of Amadeo Pace and Kazu Makino's breathy, narrow range certainly fall into that category. But like the other vocalists I mentioned, if you listen further you'll find their vocals suit the music quite well in their own way. Pace's vocals have an honest, charming style with more than a tinge of angst, while Makino has a disarming, ethereal, atmospheric style that really sets off their moodier material.

And this album is quite moody. It's where the comparisons to Radiohead become evident. The theme of this record is framed around the band's turmoil of the last few years, after Makino was seriously injured in a fall from a horse, and the Pace brothers decided on an unofficial, semi-working hiatus while she recovered. The camaraderie between the Paces and Makino is made crystal clear in recent writeups of the band -- all three believe they have something wonderful together and nothing was going to keep them from making music together. This album is essentially a tribute to their own mutual friendship.

On the first song of the album, "Elephant Woman," Makino sees herself as disfigured from her accident like the Elephant Man, inside and out, even remarking defeatedly, "Now inside and outside are matching." Straight afterward, "Messenger" has Amadeo saying, "Somewhere in your mind, you know you're doing fine." These songs set the pace for the album -- Makino in pain, wondering if recovery is possible, with Amadeo (and implicitly, Simone) keeping vigil, unable to help fully but staying by the side of their friend.

The title track, "Misery is a Butterfly," is rightly the album's centerpiece, set off by a surreal ensemble string arrangement, Amadeo's rhythm guitar, Simone's syncopated drums, Makino's keyboard melody and her spooky, affecting vocal, all contrasting brilliantly together like a threatening sky. It's one of those songs that stays with me for hours after listening. It is one of the best songs I've heard all year.

"Anticipation" is another clear album highlight, dark and brooding and yet somewhat hopeful, with a seductive, whispery vocal by Makino. As with the title track, this makes clear that Blonde Redhead's strengths lie in the strange contrasts of darkness and light, a moody approach reminiscent of Radiohead's masterpiece OK COMPUTER.

After the refreshingly bouncy (yet oddly themed) track "Maddening Cloud," there's "Magic Mountain," named after the Thomas Mann novel. But it's Haruki Murakami's NORWEGIAN WOOD that I think of, vividly, as I listen to "Magic Mountain," hearing Makino seemingly vocalizing the despair of the character of that great novel, looking plaintively at her life from a mountain refuge.

The album ends with an upbeat, loose, somewhat punk-style track, "Equus," which is supposedly a message of forgiveness to horses, but sounds to me like Makino thanking her patient bandmates with the line, "Allow me to show you the way which I adore you." It's an appropriate end to an eclectic, emotionally honest collection of music. The album isn't all brilliant, but at its best, it can soar in the stratosphere. I look forward to their future music. Three and a half stars.

Blonde Redhead is one of many bands I found on various 'so you want to get into indie' lists and downloaded essentially at random. Now I must state in advance that I am no afficionado in regards to the styles of music this fairly vague genre encompasses, and that I also have not been very impressed by most of the bands I have heard. However there can be no mistake... Misery is a Butterfly is beautiful music.

This album is designed to hit nerves, hard. Every melody is crafted with intent and deliberation, and the progressions are largely orchestral in nature - many moments in this album bring to mind the melodramatic chord pivots of pieces written by Beethoven. Amadeo's voice conjures Thom Yorke post-back alley beating, crying for mercy and a little humanity, please. Kazu's voice provides a ghostly, exhausted alternative to the self-absorbtion of Amedeo. They work in concert beautifully.

Almost any song on Misery is a Butterfly could be considered a highlight without much of a stretch. It opens with the deeply sentimental, meloncholic "Elephant Woman," which brings to mind all the saddest moments in a Benji film. The longing rhodes piano and tentative, loping snare drum of "Melody" is a haunting, cynical look through an old shoebox of things you forgot about long ago and maybe didn't want to remember. "Falling Man" is another highlight (but where are the lowlights?), with one of the most bent tearjerk melodies in recent memory. "Doll Is Mine" is the furious protest of someone who is obviously far too disadvantaged to do anything about what is plagueing them. "Maddening Clovd" is clearly the climax of this record, although not necessarily the last good song; It provides a high energy, hopeful beam of light at the end of the tunnel. Even against the brutal melody, the pace of the song seems to suggest "we're still gonna try our best!"

A highly recommended album for any fan of indie, alternative rock, or any emotionally impactful form of music. A little sentimental, yes, but that's not inherrantly a bad thing, and this album is evidence of that. Indie seems most likely to be a downhill journey for me from here.

Someone lent me this album, thinking I would enjoy it, and boy, have I ever. It wasn't long before I bought the album myself. Disclaimer: I have not heard any of Blonde Redhead's other albums, so when I see the frequent references to Sonic Youth regarding BLonde Redhead's earlier work, I can only scratch my head, because this particular album sounds absolutely nothing like Sonic Youth, not even close.

"Misery Is a Butterfly" (11 tracks, 45 min.) instead invokes memories for me to past "sophisticated, artsy" music, for example not unlike Kate Bush but harder charging. Even a comparison to Sixpence None the Richer is not out of place, with rich melodies and textures throughout the album. Lead vocals on some songs (such as the excellent opener and first single "Elephant Woman" and also the title track) are by Kazu Makino, and she shines. On other songs Amadeo Pace sings lead, including on "Falling Man", my favorite song on the album, and on the equally ecellent "Doll Is Mine".

I can't emphasize enough how much I like this album. It provides some much needed change and fresh air in today's music scene. This surely will end up on my shortlist of favorite albums of 2004. Strongly recommended!

Although they have taken a wide turn away from their previous material with their new album, Misery is a Butterfly, the band has finally managed to step completely out of the shadow of Sonic Youth and to solidify their identity as one with a wholly unique and defining sound.
Blonde Redhead is comprised of Italian twins Amedeo and Simone Pace, and Kazu Makino, who skipped out of Kyoto, Japan to arrive in the states during the early '90s. The group has put out several albums, including their self-titled debut Blonde Redhead, La Mia Vita Violenta, and Fake Can Be Just as Good. Their last release before Misery was Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, which showcased maturation and a promise of good things to come. Well, kids, good things have come indeed.
Assumingly correlated with their switch from the label Smells Like Records to 4AD, the band has shed the beat up leather jacket of punk rock for a more gossamer cloak of floating strings, soft arpeggios, and ever-present synthesizers. But the softness isn't without an edge. Like smeared lipstick, the beauty comes with the tense, mildly dirty quality that's been present in Blonde Redhead's music since their beginning.
The first single off of the album is the first track, "Elephant Woman." Beatles-esque cello and rhythmic chamber melodies roll and waver behind Makino's signature plaintive vocals. Sweet and mysterious enough to put a knot in the belly, this track sets the album's tone from the beginning.
Other noteworthy tracks include "Maddening Cloud" and "Equus." Characterized by a head swaying beat and Rhodes-like keyboard melodies, "Maddening Cloud" again showcases the vocal talents and contemplative lyrics of Kazu. "Why did you kill that poor old man, Melody? She said, he was never good to me. She said, he was never kind to me."
"Equus," sung by both Amedeo and Kazu, starts off with muted breathing and punctuated bass, overlaid with an interesting psychedelic synth sequence. More sporadic and less ambient than most of the other tracks, this song provides a much needed change of pace towards the end of the album.
Constant qualities of Misery include simplistic percussion, a medium pace, melancholy instrumentation, tasteful strings that neither swell to the point of movie soundtrack obnoxiousness nor build to a shattering climax, and a (very) subtle reminiscence of the darker, late '80's/early '90's sound of groups as the Cocteau Twins (also on 4ad), early Cure, and even a touch of Legendary Pink Dots.
While many of the tracks on this album sound similar to each other, and the element of "rock" is barely there, this album is sure to please both old and new fans alike. Rest assured, Blonde Redhead are no posers.

Blonde Redhead have long been maligned as self-consciously artsy, drawing facile comparisons to Sonic Youth and a host of No-Wave acts-- references that owe as much to their bandname's tribute to a DNA songs as to Blonde Redhead's often discordant noise-rock. That rhetoric, of course, should've been shelved after the release of Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons. I only felt I should mention it again because, apparently, many of their party-line detractors never got the memo. By Melody, much of Blonde Redhead's feedback-laced art-rock had given way to brittle pop and arm's-length romanticism, yet somehow they still caught flak for the sound they had already largely outgrown. Just saying, is all: What used to be true is now tired, and, with the release of Misery Is a Butterfly, such knee-jerk dismissals can finally be considered irrelevant.

On Melody, the band's artistic growing pains had already become evident, most notably in the wide-eyed, fairytale pining of "This Is Not", a vibrant synth-ballad that-- like the first protuberance of wing from a cocoon-- threatened to split the seams of their style-damaged rock wide open. That's not just flowery critic-speak, either-- Kazu Makino and the Pace twins (Amadeo and Simone) split from Touch & Go Records and financed their latest recording themselves, because, according to Simone, they "didn't want to have any kind of limits with what [they] wanted to do as far as expenses; with Touch & Go, sometimes things were a little tight."

The confidence that led them to strike out on their own-- even before 4AD expressed interest in the album-- is impressive. But more striking is how clearly that confidence has translated to their music. Freed from all constraints, Blonde Redhead are beautifully reborn on Misery Is a Butterfly. True, feelings of loss, insecurity, and outright alienation do factor heavily into the record's thematic vision (this butterfly isn't called "Misery" for nothing), but the band's sense of assuredness surrounds the album's themes of vulnerability.

Misery Is a Butterfly was recorded before being shopped to a label, but judging by the sound of the album, its eventual release on 4AD seems to have been an inevitability. From track one, the record is lacy and moody, perfectly suited to the one-time home of the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. The word "lush" doesn't quite capture the fluttering whirls of strings, keyboards, and delicately plucked guitar that open "Elephant Woman"; I'd go so far as to label such enveloping richness of instrumentation "baroque," perhaps even "rococo."

For Blonde Redhead's latest incarnation, the softer production simply serves as polish for tarnished, tired guitar, drums and keyboards. Here, the bristling energy that once held would-be sympathizers at bay has been turned inward, resulting in an unprecedented illusion of warmth. "Anticipation", for example, ventures into completely foreign territory for the band; it's vulnerable, yet remains emotionally available, and is breathtaking even in comparison to the band's most typically pretty compositions. Never before have Makino's gentle whispers seemed so genuine or close at hand. The psychedelia-inflected title track and the fractured desolation of "Falling Man" also offer inviting hints of the underlying humanity Blonde Redhead had, until now, been so reluctant to display.

Of course, even now, that humanity may be little more than an apparition. Their tales of heartache and desperation have cast Makino and Amadeo Pace-- the emotional heart of the band-- as tragically misunderstood, tortured poets who pin misery on their sleeves, never conceding that anyone else could be capable of understanding their pain. And despite the more inviting nature of Misery's music and production, they remain insular and distant here, as well. Only on "Anticipation" are Makino's vocals as beckoning as their musical surroundings; elsewhere, Blonde Redhead remain as they've always been: beautiful and vacant.

But they excel at being just that. It bears repeating that Misery Is a Butterfly is a gorgeous achievement. Parrying the double-edged sword of pathos in music-- the "emo" trap, if you will-- Blonde Redhead have perfected their own unusual strain of perceived insincerity. They said it themselves, and it still rings true: "Fake can be just as good." Though this album's lustrous ornamentation is often placed at odds with its halting vocals, Blonde Redhead are wise enough to embrace their own imperfections. They once espoused the merits of loving another despite our faults, and it shouldn't be hard for fans to seize on that sage advice. Misery Is a Butterfly makes it easy.

-Eric Carr, April 12th, 2004

Blonde Redhead could just be one of those for composing melancholic and eccentric melodies. Above anything, this is the band's bait to lure listeners into their indie underground. The way they evade the recycled and banal sound of the guitar/drum/and vocal set through `Misery is a Butterfly' gives the album a desired meal, complete with desert and desirable aftertastes. Makino and Amedeo's vocals, though a bit queer fit and compromises with the originality with their music.

This album isn't quite a step forward from `Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons' anymore than Radiohead's `Kid A' was a step forward from `OK Computer.' It's just a step away, which isn't a bad thing. Rather, it's a creative move. The group simply took their music in an ostensive direction. It seems the two albums weren't meant to be cohesive, but allows each individual album to shine. Misery certainly gleams despite its pseudonym.

As I've been buying Blonde Redhead records since their self-titled LP came out, I almost negected to listen to "Misery is a Butterfly" out of pretentious, pre-emptive boredom.

I have to admit: This is an incredible record. The first time I heard it, I was turned off by how massive and polished it sounded compared to their prior records. As a big fan of "Fake Can Be Just As Good" this is not what I ussually look for in a Blonde Redhead Album. This is a massive, solid and majestic record that easily creates its own universe.

One of the concerns that I've heard is that each song captures a particular mood so perfectly, that after a while, all of the songs can begin to meld, and the whole album may begin to feel like one really long song.

Don't worry though, whenever you're in the mood to listen to this record, it will probably be because of it's abillity to maintain a dark, dreamy and romanticzed vibe for 40 minutes straight; not in spite of it.

"Misery", like "Damaged Lemons" before it, finds the band becoming more and more interested in straighter pop, more traditional songwriting, and smoother arrangements. In this vein, "Misery is a Butterfly" is a much greater success.

I don't know what misguided A&R stooge picked "Equus" as a single. Any other song would have provided a more honest glimpse of what the record is all about. It is the one occasion on "Misery" where the band seems insincere. It appears that they made a misguided effort to be "current" and conform to the pseudo-'hipster' conventions that have been established by artists that they've influenced themselves.

Although they're plauged by some small degree of inconsistency, Blonde Redhead are sure to continue releasing some of the most timeless music available today.

-especially given all the pretentious garbage that floods the markets in the USA and elsewhere. Does one dare ask what love really is in a stupid consumer world? Talking about singing voices or Sonic Youth is just another crappy and superficial consumer demand. Just let the band play!
This album is, I agree, very beautiful. It has only grown as I listen to it more. The songs are very straightforward while the sound structures are quite complex and free, drawing a lot of clips from everywhere. For some reason the "sound of Blonde Redhead" the band has changed drastically. I don't want to say for better or worse, it is just their work. But I really enjoy this music and the courage of a band today to steer off the tunnelvision traintrack that most musicians steam forward on as part of some dumb marketing scheme. Why should B.R. have the same sound album after album? Why do people talk about them being boxed in at the same time they complain the band should be boxed in? The trio is now at a stage of taking control of their creativity, a wonderful moment for any artist.
Anyway, this music with it's talented creators has a great capacity, diversity, richness, deapth and passion with glimpses into a love story that unflods as you let the music ride your senses.
Olafur Th. in NYC.

This album is what I have been waiting to hear since, maybe, "OK Computer". I've been disapointed with music lately, but Blonde Redhead gave me back hope. If you feel that it's been a while since you don't hear anything great, this is your album.