Drag City (Caroline)
2006
Espers II
About This Album
Where Espers' self-titled debut album was drenched in sunshine melodies, traditional folk influences, and psychedelic acid-folk sounds ranging from Fairport Convention and Donovan to Six Organs of Admittance and Super Furry Animals, and their creepy, apocalyptic EP -- who else would cover the Durutti Column, Nico, Michael Hurley, and the Blue Öyster Cult on the same record as a reverent version of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" -- neither of these offerings truly prepare the listener for II. This Philly quintet fronted by Greg Weeks, Meg Baird, and Brooke Sietinsons have gone over the edge this time while retaining just a modicum of restraint to hold all the pieces together. The proof is in the kool-aid so to speak. The opener is the sharp, gloomy, 17th century-styled Elizabethan folk of "Dead Queen," that feels more like Pentangle, and it's countered in "Widow's Weed," the very next track, by a slew of screeing electric guitars atop a snare-heavy drumkit awash in feedback that never quite lets go of the early 1800s in its melody. Here Eastern modal drone meets trad-Anglo balladry in an opium den of thieves and warriors. "Cruel Storm," uses a sparse wash of modal jazz chords to create an open-tuned dirge that floats on an augmented key elegance; it is adorned by skeletal percussion and whispering feedback in the outer reaches.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,5 and 7)

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