Everyone Is Dirty: My Neon’s Dead (OIM Records, 2017)

September 28, 2017 at 7:32 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Everyone Is Dirty: My Neon’s Dead

This one caught my attention because the first song I heard (“My Neon’s Dead”) sounded a lot like the Throwing Muses, which made me jump for joy. This Oakland-based group does utilize a lot of classic ’90s alternative elements (crunchy guitars, loud/soft dynamics, bitter lyrics/vocals), but the inclusion of violin and pedal steel takes their sound somewhere else. In addition to the Hersh-tastic title track, there’s the moody prog-pop mini-symphony “3D Light”, which has harmony vocals, elegant violin, and a rising tempo near the end. A few strange interludes such as “Alien Birth Scene” serve as breathing points between songs such as the angsty power-pop of “Mermaid”. Then there’s the even more ambitious and lengthy “Window Eye” which brings the album to a dramatic close. This album was recorded after singer/violinist Sivan Lioncub spent months in a hospital after her liver failed, and she describes it as the “soundtrack to my toxic morphine haze.” It’s uneasy and acerbic, but not quite all-out scathing, and it gets a bit trippy at times. Worth checking out, and it just appeared on Bandcamp today.

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