MARY AND THE BOY
S/T
(Low Impedance)

QUEEN ELEPHANTINE
Surya
(Self-Released)

KEN MODE
Reprisal
(Escape Artist)

SHELLSHAG
Destroy Me I'm Yours
(Starcleaner)

THINE EYES BLEED
S/T
(The End)

GREY DATURAS
Return to Disruption 

(Neurot)

GOD'S REVOLVER
Little Black Horse Where Are

You Going With Your Dead 
River

(Exigent)

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This is some nefarious shit. And I say ‘shit’ with the utter most respect. It is certainly more damaged than the most awkward moments of PJ Harvey’s first fistful of recordings. And we could certainly link the vocals (in tone, level of disturbance and timbre) of Mary to those of the tiny Brit. Hell, as far as yours truly is concerned the world cannot have enough PJ Harveys. So that’s not an issue here. Besides, Mary and The Boy’s compositions more than stand on their own, either by pieces or with the full record as one. This is mighty fucked, and better yet when this Greek band opts for experimenting, which by the way is all the time, they do it smartly, with quick and quirky compositions that owe as much to the aforementioned artist as they do to a Diamanda Galas or a high rent Met performing opera singer. Yes, Mary doesn’t only bear children while being a virgin but also joyously desecrates her insides in this brilliant and deranged recording.

For a while I had been wondering what the music was going to be like. I had been eyeing this recording for a few weeks now; my instincts rightly instructed me that Mary and The Boy would fall on the furthest of left fields, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for this. This is difficult, because for the masses the music of Mary and The Boy simply lays itself out like music that has been deconstructed and that somehow has found its way into plastic. But those more adventurous listeners will dig this, especially if they like the morbid and the theatrics.

So yeah, some of these songs sound like fragments, but the way Mary and The Boy express themselves is so dramatic, yet somehow it never falls into exaggerated pretenses or cheeseball territory. Even when a Nick Cave-ish voice erupts in one of the songs to proclaim that ‘the devil thought he had the keys’ it all comes so nicely twisted.  Some of the music is bare, quite stripped, where Mary barely aided by The Boy evokes baroque times via some church organ.  And talk about blasphemy or to be frank, about having no boundaries. Mary and The Boy could put the foulest Satanic blasphemers to shame when half a capella/half speaking Mary proclaims to make love to Jesus.   Then a quick Eddie Van Halen-like solo comes in. Nice.

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