Customer Reviews

Possessed

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In my opinion, the best of all the Klezmatics CDs. Both upbeat and sad. New and old. I loved how the Klezmatics create new melodies with the flavor of the old. The first track "Shprayz" is a rousing melody that builds up your expectations for the rest of the CD and delivers! "An Undoing World" is a beautiful modern song that pulls at your heritage strings and ties you to the immigrant generation. In the middle set is a score from "The Dybbuk", a group of songs with a common theme. The incredibly sad "Fradde's Song" had lyrics so powerful I cry everytime I hear it. The lyrics were too painful for my wife though, as they call to mind events where we wish the dead could join the living. No song has ever affected us in quite that way before. But the flow from that track into "Der Shvartser" will lift your spirits again. I have heard this CD literally hundreds of times, yet it affects me the same way every time! Powerful music with the Klezmatics at their best.

I'm mainly writing this review because I was surprised to read some of the others, and thought I would offer forth something of a different opinion. I've discovered Klezmer music over the last two years or so, and this is definitely one of my favorite albums. The Klezmatics really shine here. I personally find the English-language ballads, with lyrics by Tony Kushner, to be heartbreaking and beautiful. "Dispossession by attrition/is the permanent condition/that the wretched modern world endures", from An Undoing World, is just one of the lines that resonates with me. The fiddle playing of Alicia Svigals is, as always, mesmerizing (though as far as I know, she is no longer with the Klezmatics). The instrumental tracks range from frentic to melancholy, and the whole of the album is a joyful listen. The liner notes by Tony Kushner are also worth the read. I would recommend this album to someone familiar with Klezmer, to someone who has never heard Klezmer, and to anyone who likes a well-written song. Some of the slower songs may take awhile to grow on ya', but in the end, I believe you'll find that they do, and that the power they possess (no pun intended, a-ha, ha-ha) make it well worth the time spent listening.

This is one of my favorite cds, in any genre. I especially love Lorin's clear voice and Alicia's violin. The songs range in tone from boisterous to contemplative to hypnotic. My kids (ages 12, 9, 4) love it too. The Klezmatics are so good at making it eclectic and yet retaining the essential Jewishness of their music. Another terrific cd, the Klezmatics collaboration with Chava Alberstein, "The Well."

This album is an amazing approach to tradition in a most creative, original and modern way. It is, at the same time, full of life, joy and haunting memories. The "Dybbuck" songs are the best stage music written for this play; with a sepulchral and contemplative quality, the music enhances this classical legend in a way that could be matched only by an expressionist vision of staging it. The other klezmer songs are funny and full of vitality in the way they address a humble past in the "shtetl", with people toiling for their lives, always in debt, whose revenge and solace were a few drinks on Shabbat.
This CD is food for the mind and the soul. It even made the long, long drive from NYC to Buffalo on the New York Thruway a breeze!

Like all their albums, the Klezmatics' work on "Possessed" ranges from staggeringly brilliant to markedly less than special, but overall, the album is excellent. High points include "Hinokh Yafo," a really lovely little piece taken from Song of Songs; "Lo Mir Heybn Dem Bekher," an intoxicatingly heady song in the classic Yiddische Arbeiters tradition; and "Mizmor Shir Le-Hanef," to my knowledge the only Yiddish song about pot smoking: a delightful slow song filled with clever wordplay and jazz/reefer in-jokes (in Yiddish, yet). Not so great are the two songs in English, "An Undoing World" and "Fradde's Song." Klezmer ballads just don't seem to work if they're not in Yiddish: English just isn't nuanced for them, and the Klezmatics really should learn that at some point. The rest of the album ranges mostly from good to better, and the whole is entirely worth owning. One of the band's best efforts.

I really loved this CD, it was one of the best I had heard in a long time. I'll admit, I'm not Jewish, so maybe I'm not really qualified to write a review as I do not completely understand the material on this CD. But I really loved this stuff anyway. Shprayz Ikh Mir and Shvarts Un Vays were my favorites, the Klezmatics do an excellent job of working their instruments into a rampant frenzy and it's impossible not to dance listening to their music. The songs in English are defiantly the low point here, although it seems a heart-felt effort, An Undoing World is a big flop. It just seems too clichéd in English, but I'll bet it could be beautiful in Yiddish. Overall this CD was an excellent hodgepodge of Jazz and traditional Jewish music & other elements.

Compared with how much we kvelled to "Jews With Horns" by the Klezmatics, to say I was disappointed with this CD is to put it mildly. The best song on here is not even listed on the outside of the case, "Eyn Mol". It's a sit-around-the-table-after-Shabbos-lunch song. Other than that, only Svigals', "Lomir Heybn Dem Bekher," warrants positive replay. Tony Kushner's liner notes about life in Louisiana were entertaining; more so, unfortunately, than his music. I'll just keep playing "Jews With Horns."