(Independent)

Debut album from art-rock performance artist

Self proclaimed “art rock brutes”, there is indeed a degree of calculated savagery to Ghostboy With Golden Virtue’s debut album Enter. Revolving around performance poet Ghostboy and multi-instrumentalists/vocalists Skye Staniford and Hannah Jane, the line-up on the new album is rounded out by musos Robbie Zawada, Paul Daly and Dan McNaulty (not to mention Loren Skyring, a tap dancer/percussionist a la Tilly And The Wall). Included is a cover of Iggy Pop’s Sister Midnight, faithfully replicating the original’s slow-burning avant-funk rhythm and bursts of Fripp-esque noise guitar. After marvelling at how Iggy Pop and Lou Reed were still alive in 1975, If I Were A Rock ‘n Roll Girlfriend is a wonderfully malevolent piece of ghoul rock, Ghostboy’s observations blending with a crawling riff worthy of early Alice Cooper. In the cabaret-from-hell whirl of Wolfish, the combo arrive not a million miles away from Nick Cave territory. There are lengthier meditations too, such as the gothic folk expanse of The Woman Who Is All Heart and the spooky rockabilly of Crimes, with a winning non-pick-up line (“Girls, you don’t have to fear me, I’m average in all the right ways”). After the sinister electro pulse of Perfection, the album closes with a near hallucinogenic version of the infamous Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin duet Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus. It’s the kind of album that could get alarm bells ringing – after all, blending poetry and music can veer from transcendent to tragic – but GWGV get the balance about right. It helps that Ghostboy’s spoken word delivery is incorporated skilfully into the music, so that it is never out of place with all that dark rock & roll and the melodic vocals of Staniford and Jane. Not an unknown pleasure, but certainly an unexpected one.

****

MATT THROWER

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