REVIEW: The Geraldine Fibbers, Butch (Virgin)
- Daniel Aloi
The new Geraldine Fibbers album should carry a warning sticker: "Critics and casual listeners are advised to do more than spot-check the first two tracks on this CD."
The band is so far-ranging on Butch that anyone who doesn't play this all the way through is missing out. They're all over the map, from the catchy-but-disaffected pop opener "California Tuffy" through the visceral punk of "Toybox" and "I Killed the Cuckoo," the confessional "Swim Back to Me" and "Seven or In 10," the postmodern mood-instrumental "Claudine," and a stunning pair of country songs.
The title track uses a string section and an anguished Carla Bozulich vocal to evocative effect. And a heavy cover of Can's "You Doo Right" is powerful - Bozulich's voice coils around the song tightly, letting go only when the the band cranks into the coda, which dissolves into alien radio feedback. "The Dwarf Song" is an atmospheric art-rock fantasy. Halfway through, the band'ss country side comes out, in all its dark glory and acoustic innocence.
The Fibbers' last effort for Virgin, 1994's Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home , as well as the 1996 EP "What Part of Get Thee Gone Don't You Understand?" (on Sympathy for the Record Industry) earned them widespread critical acclaim for wedding unflinching modern rock with rock-of-ages country music.
And it's the country songs here, too, that are endearing. "Folks Like Me" starts as a dirge and then it swings. "Pet Angel" is an Appalachian waltz, a courting song that turns into a murder ballad, with lines like "The cat's in the bag/The bag's in the river/And the river makes me cry."
Bozulich's non-gender-specific voice carries the aptly titled album through its ever-changing moods. She could sound like Patti Smith one minute, Gavin Rossdale, Donovan or Syd Straw the next. You have to respect her for her individuality, if nothing else - in a sea of female singer-songwriters out there, Bozulich is distinctly her own singer.
And as uncommercial as they may be, The Geraldine Fibbers are true to their own dark dreams as well.
