Shivaree – Tainted Love: Mating Calls and Fight Songs
If they gave out “Let’s Do Something Different” awards, Shivaree would clean up. The band’s new album consists of romantic covers, but as you can tell from the skewed title, it’s not a place to look for Gershwin or Lennon & McCartney. Try Motley Crue, Gary Glitter and David Allan Coe.
And don’t go looking for a consistent sound around singer Ambrosia Parsley. As on a jazz remix album, a team of producers lays on disparate effects ranging from full frontal industrial guitar on Chuck Berry’s “I Wanna Be Your Driver” to precocious pre-swing jazz arrangement on Ike (Hit Man) Turner’s “My Heart Belongs To You”.
Like pasta flung at the wall, some of this stuff sticks. Shivaree’s musing, atmospheric take on R. Kelly’s “Half On A Baby” has hypnotic power. Rick James’ “Cold Blooded” has a sharp, playful edge. But all the stylistic shifts become tiresome, and Parsley’s girlish trappings become annoying.
Parsley has been impressive in other settings, but she lacks the authority as a vocalist to unify these songs, to imbue the album with any real point of view. She might learn a thing or two from pop-leaning jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux, whose territory she enters once or twice here without distinction.