Imagine a rough-voiced woman singing Mazzy Star covers in the apartment upstairs while a garage band practices in the place next door. The disparate sounds spilling into your living room are complementary in a strange way, though they weren’t meant to fit together. That’s Tara Angell.
Come Down, the New York singer-songwriter’s debut, is packed with harrowing songs of dysfunction and vulnerability that exert a dark pull. Many of the tunes sound as if Angell and producer Joseph Arthur recorded onto someone else’s discarded tape and some of the abandoned songs bled through into Angell’s.
When it works, it’s bewitching, especially on tracks such as “The World Will Match Your Pain” and the opening cut “Untrue”. It’s more distracting on “Bitch Please”, which may have been recorded during a dinner party; there’s the sound of people chattering and laughing and, about three-quarters of the way through, an abrupt explosion. Really.
It’s a bit ironic, actually, because Come Down is anything but explosive. The album is a slow build, emotions piling up one after the other until they teeter precariously and collapse under their own weight. And Angell keeps singing, flinging accusations and offering quiet regrets in a voice coarsened by late nights and endless disappointment.