Child Bride "Bell Witch"
Baltimore doesn’t ever really trip this hard. It’s a fun city, with lots to do, but one would be hard pressed to refer to it as psychedelic. Child Bride might be the first to dispute that and I fully support it. Trippy layers upon trippier layers, with mumbled vocals and radio static. “Hexagram 64” also starts in the static and then, well, never really left there, but less trippy. “Access of the Beast” tends to get downright ugly, showcasing some gnarly oscillators and delayed vocals ala Tom Smith of To Live & Shave in LA. It’s the kind of song you warn your roommates about before you start recording. “The Fate of Oedipus” is probably a recording of Joe Meek’s dreams when they were really morbid. Finishing out the disc, “Acid Sin” is the subtlest of the bunch. Overlapped acoustics, straightforward singing, but it’s practically gothic in its delivery, dark as hell. The natural reverb could very well have been due to the walls of a mental institution, but then there’s the creepy reverb too. Top notch weirdness. 9/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (20 August, 2009)
 Child Bride "Reflections on Prism City" Child Bride?s post-Halloween catchall spook-out droning pieces seem more at home in the chthonic places than on the slopes of ecstasy-reaching Olympus. The vault vibe of sampleadelic dark is thick here, there?s little of the light offered in the album?s title perceptible here. Even so, this disc has an unsteady start, enough to almost sink the dedication of a casual listener. The opening ?Falcon Drops a Bomb? pulling just one too many generic sounds into its mix - Native American samples have been so ODed on that they?re now best left to the new agers or field recordings. This slight aside, overall the album is a major success, "Reflections on Prism City?s" wonky three-track charm winning out. There?s a telling sliver of NWW infects the October skin temperature pop on ?Posh?s Shadow Self?, a glimpse of deeper wells to explore for Child Bride?s future releases. Child Bride inhabits a decrepit ballroom of dissatisfaction synth waltzes of dissatisfaction - no-fi colour-drained pop poking its head out of drone?s tenements. There?s sitar toned burgundy soaked shroud blues with a death?s door Kristin Hersh sound alike on vocal - an indication that Child Bride are already reaching beyond possibly imposed expectations. 8/10 -- Scott McKeating (17 September, 2008) | |
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