creative deconstruction

Album Review: Castanets – Texas Rose, The Thaw, and the Beasts

Posted on 16. Sep, 2009 by refe in ARTISTS

Texas Rose, the Thaw and the Beasts is Castanets’ biggest and most ambitious work to date, featuring a full band and bringing to the table a brand new appetite for the epic. It’s a challenging, but oddly accessible collection of music.

The album is something of an enigma – rooted in rustic country-folk, yet twisted and bent through the lens of dark, tripped-out electronica. Its mere 39 minutes are filled with a shifting cast of slide guitars, gospel choirs, drum machines and retro synths. When it builds to the unexpectedly rock and roll climax of ‘Down the Line, Love’ or dissolves into the incoherent string-scraping of ‘Thaw and the Beasts,’ neither seem out of place.

Frontman Ray Raposa’s quivering, Dylan-esque vocals weave an uncompromisingly honest tapestry of love, loneliness and disappointment. His grit and sincerity provide an anchor for the songs’ frequent musical tangents, whether drenched in cavernous reverb or up close and personal.

The diverse arrangements of Texas Rose are highlighted in the atmospheric ‘On Beginning,’ and the horror-film blues of ‘No Trouble.’ It’s strangest moments come in ‘Worn From the Fight (With Fireworks)’ with its clicking drum loops, echoey vocals and funky bass lines that border on the whimsical.

‘Dance, Dance’ strips away the the synthesizers and samples and delivers what I found to be the highlight of the album.

So she says, “come in from the rain”
Well, hell, I came in from the rain
It was cold she had room
Hell, I suppose I’m not averse to being tamed.

Raposa tells the story of love and the disappointment when it doesn’t work out quite the way you thought it would.

It was a love so bitter, so taxing, so sad
it was alarming
And then even the good neighbors kids
they seemed more vicious than charming.

The picture he paints is stark and at times harsh, and he does so matter-of-factly and without apology.

No more a mole in the ground or a bear in the winter
Let it be broken glass and bones
Let it be scratches and stitches and splinters.

Yet, it isn’t without a sense of redemption.

Its a long difficult dance
but I think maybe it’s still good
Even though we all dance sometimes
to a song we don’t love like we should.

The story is almost cinematic in scope – as the song ends and the music fades out it feels a little like watching the credits of a film. It had me wondering if all the avant-garde trappings and electronic indulgences up to that point were really necessary. Perhaps they’re really a kind of subconscious diversion to give Raposa’s soul-bearing something to hide behind.

Texas Rose, The Thaw, and the Beasts isn’t going to be for everyone. But that’s alright. It may be the most accessible Castanets album to date, but in the end I don’t think ‘everyone’ isn’t who it’s made for.

Listen to Worn From the Fight (With Fireworks)

Castanets: Texas Rose, The Thaw, and the Beasts is scheduled to be released Sept. 29, 2009 on Asthmatic Kitty Records.

Tags: albums, Asthmatic Kitty, Castanets, music, reviews