Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light

Antony Hegarty’s miracle of a voice is a wonderfully expressive exercise in auditory paradox, effortlessly blending the timbres of the male and female voice that conveys, simultaneously, heartbreak and triumph; the plaintive and the operatic; the fragile and the powerful. His group, Antony and the Johnsons, gained considerable critical and commercial attention in 2005 with the release of their second album I Am a Bird Now.

It was an album that found strength through its own vulnerability by channeling the gloriously cathartic highs of soul, gospel, and even electronica. That was just in the first song alone. Even more remarkable was that I Am a Bird Now sustained that feeling throughout its entirety, with songs like “I Am Your Sister,” “Fistful of Love” and “For Today, I Am A Boy” providing a profound emotional catharsis for anyone who happened to be listening.

And many people did listen to I Am a Bird Now’s celebratory takes on issues like the fear of death, sexual confusion and frustration, loneliness and longing. It was nominated for—and subsequently won, to mild controversy—the prestigious Mercury Prize, an annual music prize which recognizes the best album from the United Kingdom; Bird also garnered rave reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian, and The Observer.

In re-visiting Bird, it becomes immediately clear that what makes that album so sublime is its warmth in the face of adversity. Its follow-up, however, is a colder, more classical, and less baroque affair overall. The Crying Light finds Hegarty channeling his more stoic, melancholic tendencies. Here, Hegarty succumbs to gloom a little bit, a step in direction that, at first, appears to be to the record’s detriment. But ultimately, impeccable songcraft, and a few more dips into the well of Bird’s transgender soul music help convince the listener they’re hearing darkness illuminated.

From the opening piano chords of “Her Eyes Are Beneath The Ground,” it becomes apparent that this will be the second Johnsons album in a row to open with a meditation on death (as well as the second to feature a picture However, instead of the hopeful note that “Hope That Someone” struck–“Hope that someone/will take care of me/when I die”–“Her Eyes” provides no cathartic uplift. Any note of optimism that the previous record began on has been extinguished, as the lyrics, accompanied by spare piano and orchestral touches like violins and cello, bid adieu to a passing mother.

“Epilepsy is Dancing,” about a dancer who cries glitter, continues the austere streak, with brushed drums, gentle folk-guitar arpeggios, and Antony’s hushed vocal delivery taking center stage. The song borders on Gaelic folk, and while it’s certainly compelling to hear Hegarty try new stylistic turns, one starts to get a little bit impatient, wondering why someone who is such an expressive performer is holding back. The good news is that the next two songs match Bird’s artistic flight. “One Dove” is the third saddoes track in a row, but the fact that it’s more jazz-influenced and not dark chamber pop lends the song a distinct presence, while “Kiss My Name” is upbeat and romantic. Similarly, the album reaches its peak with epic “Daylight and the Sun” which celestially combines the warmth and humanity of Bird with Light’s subtler, ingratiatingly spare approach.

Sequentially speaking, Light’s winning streak continues with two subdued ballads. The record’s title track starts off with the dissonant string clashes that characterized the score of There Will Be Blood before sequing back into the kind of romantic pop music that Jeff Buckley was know for. Ditto for the piano-based “Another World”, which echoes “Hope There’s Someone” thematically speaking. A slower piano song that turns into a blues song, “Aeon,” doesn’t quite fit Antony’s talents, but the album ends with two songs that do—the musically frugal vocal exercise “Dust and Water”, and the lush, cinematic closer “Everglade”. Both tracks are noteworthy for the simple way that the group builds to an awe-inspiring crescendo, particularly on the latter.

Hegarty’s musical approach still allows for transcendence, even when the arrangements are smaller in scope. While the more folk and classical inclinations found don’t measure up to the joyful sorrows elsewhere on both Light and Bird, The Crying Light, like Shearwater’s underrated effort from last year, Rook, is at its best when it draws moments of epic grandeur from a minimalist orchestral approach. It’s the tiny missteps at the album’s beginning which demonstrate that Antony and the Johnsons should be commended for exploring darker themes, but that it shouldn’t let that get in the way of their inherent humanity. The good news is that, most of the time, they don’t.

No related posts.

Tagged as: baroque pop, indie pop

blog comments powered by Disqus