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The Adventures Of Ghosthorse and Stillborn | CocoRosie
Touch And Go Records | April 10th

Review by Yoshua Wakeham

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Sounds like … crystal light-infused bicycle bells to a Thom Yorke beat.

CocoRosie’s latest is most likely to divide and challenge listeners, largely thanks to Bianca Casady’s strange, almost wilfully inaccessible voice. While her sister Sierra, the band’s other half, has a powerful, professionally-trained voice, Bianca warbles in a strange, childish way, a sour warhead or two south of Joanna Newsom. On Ghosthorse, the sisters have chosen to foreground Bianca’s weirdness more than ever, with Sierra hovering around singing both sublime supporting parts (‘Sunshine’ and ‘Werewolf’), and creepy little operatic overtures (‘Japan’ and ‘Houses’).

I’m not saying that Bianca’s vocal contributions are bad; they’re just different. Her unusual style of folk rap is unique and successful on songs like ‘Animals’, ‘Raphael’, and the aforementioned (and excellent) ‘Werewolf’, but listening to her puzzling, artificial crooning on ‘Japan’, or her more exaggerated idiosyncrasy on the peculiar and unnecessary ‘Bloody Twins’ will be a trial for all but the most patient listeners.

All grumbles aside, I feel free to say that this is a very good album; even Bianca’s fake Jamaican patois isn’t enough to ruin the addictive ‘Japan’, and ‘Raphael’ remains a hypnotic cathedral of a song. CocoRosie’s instrumentation is weird and fascinating, with kazoos, bicycle bells, children’s toys, radios, coins, and sampled beats jostling for space with the more (or less) conventional piano and harp. The sisters have crafted something like an art gallery soundtrack - delicate, ethereal, and precious. Old Masters like ‘Raphael’ and ‘Sunshine’ hang alongside pieces far more modern, like ‘Rainbowarriors’ and ‘Japan’. As for ‘Girl and the Geese’, it’s anyone’s guess what the artists were thinking.

If you think you can stomach what occasionally sounds like a puckered child singing along to a music box, you might not be able to stop listening.

7 out of 10