Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light Review
Antony Hegarty, with the face of a saint and the voice of an angel, this week releases The Crying Light on Secretly Canadian, a title that prompts me to mistake it for The Crying Game! His follow-up to 2005’s triumphant I am a Bird Now (winner of the Mercury Music Prize), it is an assortment of immensely dramatic, emotional and symphonic songs, taking on his familiar themes of loneliness, estrangement, and the disappearing natural world.
The deeply personal lyrics are just emotional enough to do Antony’s warbling bird of a voice justice. From the understated “Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground”, enriched by intriguing harmonies and clarinet, to the syncopation of the up-tempo “Kiss My Name”, Antony and the Johnsons do not take any short-cuts with their orchestrations or with the intensity. The current line-up includes Julia Kent, Maxim Moston, Jeff Langston, Rob Moose, Parker Kindred, Thomas Bartlett, Kevin Barker, and Doug Wieselman.
In “Epilepsy is Dancing”, acoustic guitar and piano bob and weave, tangling and untangling, pulling and teasing with tasteful jazz drumming. “Cut me in quadrants / leave me in the corner,” Antony trills as dancing woodwinds build to a crescendo. “One Dove” conjures underwater visions, swimming in guitar and a gentle bass line. In “Kiss My Name”, weak lyrics trip over the syncopated piano as the string section practices its scales. Antony comments on the state of the planet in “Another World”, celebrating its inherent majesty. “Daylight kisses everything she sees” in “Daylight and the Sun”, matched by foreboding strings and screaming piano to fuel a passionate ode to creation.
“The Crying Light” is incredibly hymn-like, and Antony’s voice is most like an instrument here. He sings about secrecy and the “courage to receive love”, offering a message for the transgendered: “I was born to represent you / to carve your face into the back of the sun”.
“Aeon” is a love song stripped naked. Its guitar invokes Jeff Buckley’s ghost in its forlornness, and harp and strings clamor to compete with Antony’s mighty articulations. “Let’s take our power back,” he sings. “Dust and Water” is the most sacred in feeling, and in it Antony chants like a Gregorian monk, the words pouring out of his mouth like liquid. “Everglade” is a jumble of horns and piccolo, the most classical of the included tracks. At times it seems that the clarinet and Antony’s vocal chords have become one.
As sad as these songs may seem at first – stained by sorrow and alienation – a current of hope runs through each crescendo and every vibrato. It is not listening for the faint of heart.
Antony and the Johnsons play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto on February 17.
MP3:
Antony and the Johnsons – Epilepsy is Dancing
Antony and the Johnsons – One Dove
Buy at:
Amazon
Tags: album
