Customer Reviews

As One Aflame Laid Bare By Desire

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

BTFABG's work is definitely an aquired taste. Their pretensious, artsy leanings can be off-putting to some as can the bleakness of their sound. However, when they strike the right balance, BTFABG can create some really great stuff.

In my opinion, the less Oscar vocals, the better. Black Tape's best stuff is ethereal, moody, contemplative and quite beautiful. Some if it can be reminiscent of This Mortal Coil's work (in style), some of it similar to darker moodier New Age/Vidna Obmana type work (whom Sam did a collaboration with once. An excellent CD by the way). I don't care what anybody says, I happen to like that stuff and I enjoy melodramatic, dark music. To me, I don't need a band to have so called "redeeming" values in the their work. I don't see optimism as being either a "redeeming" value or a negative one. It just is. If you want optimism put some other band in your player. That's what I do. When I'm in the mood for a more bleak and serious tone, I put in Black Tape or other stuff like them. Everything has it's place and purpose. Just because a work of art is pessimistic does not mean it does not have "redeeming" quality. As for the band being too artsy and literate..well, I see both sides of this arguement. I mean with a name like Black Tape For A Blue Girl, you should know what you are in for....a little pretensiousness is bound to be evident. However it's a sad sad commentary on American culture that when someone is literate and has a knowledge of art and they show it because that is what they are genuinely interested in, they get put down or dismissed as being too "artsy".

That being said a lot of Goth music can be a little too melodramatic at times, too over the top and I tend to like those bands that don't cross that line into excessivness. That's why a lot of Black Tape's work is hit and miss. At their worst they can be unintentionally comical, at their best they are entrancing and beautiful. This release is one of the latter and well worth getting.

I listened to this three times in a single afternoon. I found the music to be the most haunting I have ever heard. I bought it on a whim and I am hooked.

This is a nice collection of sound-art that's melancholy, pretty, and pleasant to listen to while day-dreaming or getting ready to sleep.

I would agree with other reviewers that it's not for everyone's taste. So, I wouldn't recommend this if you aren't friendly to (or at least open-minded about) experimental/ambient music. I would hesitate to call most of these tracks "songs" in the traditional sense. If you expect a beat and a melody, you'll be disappointed! Also, don't expect great poetry. The lyrics are, at least in my opinion, second-rate. (But that isn't especially distracting. The vocal delivery is generally very non-agressive, so you can ignore the words and let the voices blend into the sounds.)

On the positive side, this CD weaves together a mood that is tranquil, yearning, and dreamy. It's all pretty, and there are occasional moments of beauty. The ethereal voices are nice (especially the female vocals) and the instrumentation is often lulling and sometimes haunting.

You could find it either peaceful or boring, I think, because it doesn't build to any real crescendos. Fragments of melody appear and disappear. A motif starts to develop, then fades away. I think of it as "emotional driftwood" because it's like a fragment of feeling or a bit of a story that washes up on the beach with one wave, then vanishes underwater again with the next. I find it nice to listen to with my eyes closed, just letting my thoughts swirl in and out of the soundscapes. It's sort of like meditation music, but painted with a different palette than the new-age stuff, grey-tones instead of brights or pastels.

Lush, gorgeous, passionate. The latest album from Black Tape for a Blue Girl explores and bares emotions in a personal manner like few others dare to. Black Tape's gothic/etherial style has never been more accessible, but the insight offered by Sam Rosenthal's lyrics is powerful and runs deep. The music makes one realize just what the term "achingly beautiful" means. Light candles and prepare to be swept off your feet.

Black Tape for a Blue Girl is overlooked in the music business considering their talent and the quality of their music. Seems like [stuff] is always popular and anybody can be called a diva but there are bands and groups out there in the shadows whose talent is superior however they rarely if ever get noted for it or recieve any recognition.
Anyway this cd is great to relax to and listen to while writing or to set the mood for a quiet evening with friends. Given is my favorite track on the cd. Though I wouldn't say this is their best cd it's certainly one of my favorites.

Fellini would listen to this stuff and say, "Um...I don't get it."

Black Tape for A Blue Girl is as artsy as it gets. Like all their albums, it's hit-and-miss but good enough to add to your CD library.

Sam Rosenthal's lyrics and singing are so melodramatic that you either fall off your chair laughing, or you dissolve in tears as he voices your deepest sorrows. Julianna Towns' beautiful, disciplined voice (similar to Claire Voyant's Victoria Lloyd) is an effective counterpoint. Oscar Herrera's vocals sound like Rosenthal's, and thus suit the music equally.

The instrumentation is soothing, and it's all bathed in Rosenthal's synth. Lisa Feuer's flute work is simple and seductive. Vicki Richards' serpentine violin conveys the Black Tape version of a guitar solo. When a PIANO is the most upbeat, percussive instrument on an album (as in track 8, "Russia"), that's an intense mood. The melodic standouts are "Given," "entr'acte [the carnival barker]," and my personal favorite, "Denouement/denouncement." The ambient vibe of "The Passage" is so hypnotic that if you close your eyes, you either see The Light At The End of The Tunnel, or you lapse into a coma for three weeks.

"As One Aflame" goes exactly where Black Tape has gone before, but they're the only band going SO VERY FAR along that path. They're the sonic equivalent of the girl in 11th grade who wore raccoon eye makeup and wrote poetry with her two friends during lunch. Viva la Mope!

I'm shocked, shocked I say, that I never discovered this band until recently. How the hell could I have missed them?

Maybe this album is the best of their work, I don't know, but it left me in a state of amazement when I listened to it the first time. The second time it reminded me of all those time as a young man when I would listen to Bauhaus or the Cure as I went to bed. Every single time I listen to it, I get more out of it. Today, on an airplane, I nearly wept as I listened to "Tell Me You've Taken Another," although I was able to contain myself, for which my seatmate would probably thank me, if he knew.

Anyway, if you're able to take it, listen to this in the bathtub, with candles and incense and all that stuff. Don't be surprised if it brings up something unexpected within you.

but I loved it. This was my first Black Tape for a Blue Girl album, and I find it dreamily wonderful. It is, very briefly, prose-poetry or poetry-prose (as you like it) set and sung to orchestrial, almost operatic music. Very atmospheric. Not what you normally think of when you think "goth," no heavy underbeats or shouted pleas for a final release, but still very sorrowful. It reminds me of a lot of the old mourning dances you see in operas or silent films. Some tracks, particularly those lacking in vocals, I found more disappointing, but on the whole, and excellent album.

I can not express the way that Black Tape For A Blue Girl are able to draw emotion out of every last note or word. I swear I culd listen to just the music or just the lyrics and still get as emoitonal as get listening to everything.

One of the reasons the "Goth Talk" skits from Saturday Night Live were so funny was because there was a fragment of truth in them (and judging from this CD, not a small fragment). Some of the songs on this disc (the ones with Sam Rosenthal on lead vocals in particular) are so over-the-top and maudlin, you'd have difficulty believing they weren't parodies. As with much music in the Gothic vein, there is a good deal more pretense here than genuine musical talent or ability. So why three stars--why not one? Much of this CD is instrumental music and is quite nice. And the tracks with Julianna Townes on vocals just seem to "work" better than those where Sam is singing. Julianna has a lovely voice and is often mixed in the background or middleground, giving her vocals that "crying in the wilderness" affect. And the last track, "The Passage", is 15+ minutes of dreamy, ambient drift that would be at home on several Brian Eno releases. Overall, there is some pretty good music on this CD. Just keep your finger over the "Skip" button on your player.