Customer Reviews

Plague Songs

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This one's taken some hard knocks, which are not entirely undeserved. It's an uneven release.

Interesting how Imogen Heap's contribution seems to polarize people. I'll just say that I adore it, and would recommend risking $0.99 on it any day of the week, month, year, or decade. It's just that brilliant.

As if the concept of this project weren't strange enough, the bulk of the artists approach their contributions subjects too literally making this a quite painful listening experience. Particularly guilty are the tracks by Klashnekoff, Scott Walker, Stephen Merritt, & Cody ChesnuTT. What makes this CD so frustrating is that it contains two tracks that are brilliant creative gems by Imogen Heap & Rufus Wainwright. These contributions shine as among those artists best works and are the only reason to give this disc a listen or purchase.

I love this collection! It's an intriguing idea to take some of today's most fascinating & talented musicians to write & perform songs based upon Biblical plagues. Highlights include Imogen Heap, Laurie Anderson & Rufus Wainwright!

There are some big indie names on this album and when I read about the Margate Exodus project the music seemed like a promising outgrowth. Unfortunately, most of the songs on this disk suck and those that don't arouse only mild interest. You'd do better to buy an individual album by one of the artists so unfortunately here -- say, 69 Love Songs by Magnetic Fields.

Some very interesting artists comissioned for this recording along with the grandiose concept made it a pretty irresistable purchase. Having Scott Walker, Brian Eno, Stephin Merritt and Laurie Anderson all on the same compilation is pretty much impossible for someone like myself to ignore. But, although the contributions from the artists mentioned above are all fairly effective, the weaker contributions make it difficult to go back for repeat listenings. Cody ChestnuTT sticks out like a sore thumb(covered in boils) with his take on the plague; "Boils". In the liner notes Cody explains how his goal was something along the lines of being an instrument of Gods glory or some such nonsense. Exceedingly more cringeworthy is the song itself which sounds like a Dave Matthews band outtake. Other standouts(in the negative sense) include the completely banal disco pop stylings of Imogen Heap. Omit these two aberrations and you've got a rather cohesive record. There were however, some pleasant surprises as well from two artists I was previously unfamilar with; King Creosote, and Tiger Lilies who held their own alongside some pretty legendary artists. In fact Creosotes', "Relate the Tale" is the most memorable selection of the lot.