“Rather understated and wispy, but very, very pleasant and a wonderful little find.”
“Rather understated and wispy, but very, very pleasant and a wonderful little find.”
White Nuns on Red Wine. Now that’s a good album title. Thankfully, these guys aren’t just a one trick pony because the music Wicked Immigrant have contained within this criminally short album is rather lovely. Rather understated and wispy, but very, very pleasant and a wonderful little find.
I won’t pretend to try and explain the album’s cover, because it makes absolutely no sense to me, but the album itself opens with the rather wonderful Pod Children, a song carried by a steady rhythm of acoustic guitars and some eerie vocals. John Wenzel’s voice seems to have a ghostly element to it and there’s a definite reverb floating around it, but only slightly. As if the vocals were recorded in a very small tunnel. In the background there’s some rather entertaining electric guitar playing. Or wailing, I should say, as it sounds like whoever’s playing it wants to strangle the string, but in a slow and playful manner. The result is something that sounds like a drunk whale, sloshing its way home to the Arctic after a few pints too many. It’s a lovely little tune but it’s rather infuriating because as soon as the lyrics start getting interesting, as soon as they mention the city being attacked, then the whale drinks another gallon of kelp vodka and swims off into the distance. What we’re left with is half of something extraordinary, so it’s unfortunately just very good.
Veranda Myth, on the other hand is absolutely wonderful. The whale guitar is replaced with a subtle but effective cello and thankfully, for the only time on the album, the song breaks the four minute barrier so it feels like the right length.
As the album goes on it’s more of the same, but at least it is good stuff. It never outstays its welcome but considering the album lasts less than half an hour, that would be a hard thing to do. Everything’s well crafted and played and the song titles are almost as good as the album’s title. “Fake Virgins Arrested!” “Batter of the Sods.” “Void Vixen,” I mean, how cool are they?
Calm, assured and confident, Wicked Immigrant deserve a lot of praise. White Nuns On Red Wine is a great little album, perfectly made for those afternoons when only a bottle of red and a selection of fine cheeses will do. They deserve to be heard, so seek and ye shall find. www.friendlypsychicsmusic.com
Words : Damian Leslie