Cul De Sac
"The Strangler's Wife" Official Soundtrack CD
Strange
Attractors Audio House
Genres: drone rock, experimental rock
Strange Attractors
PO Box 13007
Portland OR
97213-0007
Jan 26 - Feb 1 2004 |
Yes.
Cul De Sac's third Strange Attractors album is here. The
Strangler's Wife, a soundtrack to the film of the same name, is here.
And any true fan of laidback, melodic experimental rock needs
to go out and purchase it. Immediately.
Alright, I'm jumping the gun here. This album isn't
perfect. Like most soundtracks, there are moments on The
Strangler's Wife that - though fine when accompanied by moving
images - can drag when listened to alone. I'm talking about
short soundscapes like "Second Victim (Shower)" and
"Mae Learns the Truth," which suffer from a lack of melody -
not something that's necessarily bad, but something that doesn't
really fit in with the more potently accessible moments on
this disc.
But then there's the rest. And, I'll tell you, the majority
of this soundtrack is so good. The tracks run the gamut
from energy-charged ("First Victim (Apple)", "Tailing
the Stranger"), to inquisitive ("Lovemaking / Mae's
Theme," "Mirror II (Mae and Elena)" to flat-out creepy
("Second Victim?", "The Dumpster") Recurring
melodic motifs are present throughout the album's duration, as is
customary with film scores. The instrument list is long and
varied, featuring everything from a harp to a saz, as well as
standards like turntables, violin, and synths. While most of the
tracks are abstract and fragmented, there are also a few more
straightforward, instrumental "rock"- and "pop"-like songs,
though those quotation marks are
there for a reason.
Nobody can do this better than Cul De Sac. Although
drone rock has certainly carved a limited niche for itself, I find it
hard to believe that anyone with any inkling of an attention span
wouldn't like The Strangler's Wife.
89%
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 18 tracks, distributed by the
label, released 2003] |